#because my dad loves superman so superman always reminds me of him SEE it's related

[todayisafridaynight]

Literally will sit and rewatch the episode of Super Salaryman the first photo is a production image from just to see Tsutsumi's character super excited to see the monkeys <3 love him dearly and the show as a whole big serotonin boost <3 also less Hostage Situation shot of the second one

AND OKAY I WOULD'VE TOLD YOU ABOUT RASEN IF I KNEW YOU LIKED ADO THE SONG S L A P S AND SO DOES THE INTRO SEQUENCE IN GENERAL

One Google Search Later how could you not tell me bout this show sooner the premise sounds so fuckin cute hold ONNNN 😭😭

OH BUT YEAH MY ADO FANATICISM WASNT EVER MADE PUBLIC IG LMAO yeah i love her :)) the intro IS mundo cool (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

[mdhwrites]

My Adventures With Jimmy's Two Gay Dads (MAWS) Episode 6 Review

Spoiler Free Thoughts: A good course correction from the episode before with good fun, a good bit of escalation as far as the scope for what they can do for villains even if they're still tech related, FINALLY some concrete answers on plot things and just a wonderful pair of villains that I'm sad we likely won't see again, at least not anytime soon. The only thing I was just okay with really was the Lois, Clark and Jimmy stuff. None of it was bad but it was a little rushed and a little awkward at times and I don't think Lois got a moment to shine like I had been expecting/hoping. It all worked well enough though to has me excited for the next episode once again.

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So this is going to be shorter than usual because my brain is hissing at me at wasting typing energy on something other than the Lindworm retelling I'm working on (if you're interested, go check out my Discord) so I can't focus as well as I normally can. Luckily, I don't actually have as much to say about this episode as usual, especially beyond what I said in my spoiler free thoughts.

This episode is just good. For resolving the previous episode it does the job fine but it is probably the clunkiest part, as if they don't want to fully resolve it or didn't want to linger on the drama for too long. It still works well though with Clark stating why Lois impresses him, Clark showing why Lois loves him (and I wish Lois got a moment like that that just let her shine as a reminder of why these two want to be together) and Jimmy shows the right reaction to the secret by giving Clark space since it's obviously sensitive to him. He also then has the right reaction of indignation when he finds out Lois was 'told' first.

Which... I would like Jimmy to stop being objectively right and that not going very far. This episode isn't too bad about it but for the past two episodes, Jimmy feels like he's doing the correct thing that the other two might learn from but that doesn't really go anywhere. The lack of them talking as much as maybe they could have would have helped it feel stronger in this episode too and I just feel like it was kind of lacking. If you're going to keep make Jimmy shine or feel just as important as the other two, can you please actually resolve that in someway during an episode?

But I do want to touch on Clark's reason for keeping the secret because I like that they DIDN'T use Spiderman's reason. A lot of people responded that part of why Supes has been hiding his secret is the threat it poses to his loved ones and friends but like... Until the last month, why would Superman, one who always sees the best in poeple, think that? No one wanted him dead, no threat could challenge him and he believes people are inherently good.

As such, the reason IS selfish. It's so he could be seen and treated as normal, even to the point of ignoring those around him. When he asked Lois "Do you really think that little of me?" I'd hoped that would get turned around on him at the end when he talked about these fears. They say they never would which works but I think it would have been more powerful to more specifically target that Clark needs to have faith in those around him.

It also made him saying the effective mission statement of Superman, that he will help humanity until the day people are accepting of all and help each other, a little rough for me. Not that it is bad for him to say but I wish his response to being told that no one would accept him for being different had been "You know, I had thought that but today I got shown that I might just be wrong about that and so long as I can believe everyone can be like the ones I love, I'm not going anywhere, especially not so long as they need my help."

Speaking of outcasts though: I LOVE Mallah and Brain. They truly do sell old married couple energy, the bit about the dishes is AMAZING, while also being mad scientists. And yet, you never fully disbelieve that they aren't honest. They genuinely want to help people and live a life of peace but, you know, mad scientists be mad scientists. They actually reminded me a lot of Lumiere and Cogsworth, especially with Mallah talking about having been alone for decades contrasting with "Ten years we've been rusting, needing so much more than dusting."

Also, good on Ivo that he seems to be recovering OKAY after the Parasite suit but man, revenge isn't what you need boy. You need therapy. Speaking of villains, my limited knowledge of Omecs (again, hope I'm getting the name right) make me look at this version and go "Some people are going to be MAD" because it does genuinely feel like just using a comic name for something that is absolutely not what it is in the comics. Maybe some version of them but definitely not the version I'm most familiar with, at least to my knowledge.

Do I mind? Not really. It gives them a neat name and they can get renamed later once their origins are fully revealed or the like but even that would reasonably feel cheap to comic fans. Again, doesn't matter that much to me but for once I would understand others being annoyed.

But in general, it's just a good episode that I think handles the aftermath of episode 5 well, continues showing how much charisma and charm the show has in its character writing but I am REALLY ready for a Jimmy focused episode already. One that is genuinely about him and not about the trio like this one was.

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I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[scoups4lyfe]

hey scoups... I'd like to ask.. other than Ikki, (and maybe George) is anyone else aware of Ikki's ultimate fate of being forgotten? (wait, is George even aware of Ikki's fate aside from disappearing in pictures?)

As far as I’m aware (up to episode 33, maybe I’ll REBLOG this with updates as I catch up.)

The only people that have even noticed Ikki’s photo disappearance are: Vice (the cause), Ikki (sacrifice central), and George (manipulative bastard)

I think out of everyone — the only family member with the slightest chance of noticing Ikki’s deletion-of-self would be Daiji — but uuuh lol

I’m gonna be under the assumption that Daiji will be too self-involved to be aware of what’s going on until it’s too late.

(And seeing as we’re entering Daiji’s Go-Stupid-Go-Crazy Arc — Haha we love a good pathetic!loser Arc let’s goooooo)

I highly doubt Daiji is going to notice.

Sakura still in a way sees Ikki like a Superman figure, I don’t think she knows a single lick about his insecurities and traumas so she 100% does not know what is happening and most likely won’t until it becomes so explicitly obvious — like Ikki forgetting her name or something.

And his parents?

Oh, they mean well <33. But they don’t know sh*t about Ikki.

They’re used to the other kids having problems — not Ikki.

I’m always reminded of episode 8 and episode 12.

At the end of episode 8 — the absolute insanity of asking Ikki to save Daiji RIGHT after Daiji beat the sh*t out of him and tried to kill him still boggles my mind.

Tbh I don’t think they would ask this from him if they understood how much pain and anxiety and hurt it put him through.

I was talking with my friend Nacho about this not too long ago, but they messaged the chat saying they got a closer look into Ikki's parents mentality. (As Nacho and Ikki are very, very, similar.)

Here's their personal reference:

Nacho: (basically had walked too much and got blisters/sore feet)

“--Anyways we had been at the airport for hours already — but it wasn’t until the last hour that my dad was like:

‘Oh? Does your foot still hurt?”

“If I had ever complained my parents would’ve fallen over themselves to help me. But I never do, and even when somebody else brings it up, I always deny it and downplay it, and have been doing it my whole life.”

[End personal reference quotes lol]

So I put in my friend’s personal reference to show just how Ikki and his parents are in relation to each other.

Yeah — obviously different people, different lives. But the foundation is the same.

Ikki’s parents aren’t able to read his micro expressions. They never learned how, and since he hid how he really felt because he had the be the one capable enough to protect the family and raise his siblings.

(He couldn’t let himself be a burden.)

This is why the end of episode 8 and why just episode 12 in generaal really GOT me. There’s no better proof that Ikki’s parents don’t know how to read Ikki’s expressions than the episode 12 dinner conversation.

I screenshot and bring it up often and I won’t be stopping now

The episode 11 lunch scene has GOT my a$$.

Even injured his parents don’t realize that Ikki is really hurt and anxious. Dude is not eating! Not acting how he usually does!!

!!!!!

And it’s still wild to me that they aren't able to pick up on this--

Ugh breaks my heart every time I watch the scene LOL. My DUDE :((.

"(wait, is George even aware of Ikki's fate aside from disappearing in pictures?)"

Hmmm. I don't know how the narrative is placing this--

But I'm assuming George knows exactly what is going on.

We've seen (legit the first 13 episode are a good example of this) just how perceptive George can be. It didn't take him long to find Daiji suspicious, and it also didn't take him long to figure out Daiji had split into a different personality.

Then he manipulated Hiromi -- Knowing exactly what Hiromi would do-- because George needs to be that perceptive.

Which is why I can't help but wonder just what his game is here

like??

What reason does he have for not telling anyone? Hm??? Really suspicious. Makes me wonder just how much of an "ally" he really is.

[honeybunhalo]

Kara/Lena adopt Superboy AU Notes (Part 1)

I’m finally delivering on the content for this Supercorp AU

This is a Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor and Superboy (Kon-El) centric story. Specifically focused on exploration of one's identity and how you define yourself with the many aspects of your life and choices you made as well as what you consider important and precious to you. The effects of being constrained by how you were born and finding those who love you for who you are and don't ask you to change the core of your being to fit in. — this is not an action packed story at all.

Here are some of the ideas I have for this or things I thought Kon had in common with Lena and Kara that I find compelling.

Lena concepts:

Lena gets to know another Luthor, her biological nephew, who isn’t a trash person and is someone to not just for her to protect but who’s existence assures her that it isn’t blood that makes someone bad and maybe she isn’t so different from other people and she’s not “irredeemable”. Sometimes he reminds her of her older brother when he was kind to her growing up. Likewise, everyone usually sees the Lex in Kon as an inherently bad thing and thus he learns to hide it and hate himself for it. Lena presents an alternate because she remembers bittersweetly a simpler time when she looked up to her brother. Not everyone sees the Luthor genes in him as a threat, Lena finds it comforting to be able to help someone like her in a way she was never helped as a young girl. 

Lena thinks she can’t interact with kids well, much less the kid Lex had grown in a lab, but she totally warms up to him and can talk to him about familial rejection (via Clark) and if it’s because he’s a Luthor and if that makes him wrong. Is it because he’s artificial? Is it because he’s some strange illegitimate lab child? Smothering this kid with love and protection.

Plus Kon is like Kara in more than just being kryptonian but also in dorkiness. Lena’s life is just trying to wrangle an overpowered golden retriever and her lab puppy. She can’t stay mad at them for long.

Lena finding she is capable of loving and being loved and being with Kara makes it harder to ignore the crush she has on Kara. They talk together about love and acceptance now they have a shared kid they don’t want to hide personal things from that could later hurt him and many things become open secrets in their now shared house. Soon enough, it becomes obvious she needs to be truthful with Kara about her own feelings for her. 

Lena could learn about the difficulties of hiding being an alien that Kara had to deal with and the onslaught and exhaustion of developing powers in young kryptonians. She gets to see first hand what it does to a child and wonders how that must have affected Kara’s emotional development and sense of self. 

Lillian and Lex won’t get anywhere near this kid if Lena has something to say about it. Lena knows what it’s like to be the odd one out in a family and for people to reject you for simply existing from other people's sins

Kara concepts:

Kara recounts how she felt like a failure waking up on earth to find out Kal had grown up without her. Now she can maybe make peace with that by taking in Kon even if everything that motivates her choices with him is primarily for kons sake. 

Kara can share with another person krypton's history and culture which is something she’s had to keep seperate from her primary identity for years now *cough* it’s almost like she’s an immigrant who has to hide her identity and culture to be accepted and you could use that in the story *cough* 

Kon lived through being created as a lab rat and the only living experiment left. Kara could sympathize with his own grief from her experience with survivors’ guilt. 

Being open with Kon so that he doesn’t feel that same overwhelming pressure when she was told to hide with a human family also gives room for Lena to learn more about the world Kara came from beyond what she knows from interviews from Superman. Having Kara speak openly about her life on Krypton is much more personal and feels much more real than any article could do. 

Teaching Kon how best to control his powers and her and Lena being able to have the resources for him to do so safely 

Alex is very alarmed by the new addition to the family, mostly because how shitty Clark was in relation to the kid. From her perspective, this is not the first time the guy has dumped an unwanted kryptonian child on someone else’s doorstep. Whatever, she gets to buy leather jackets for her new nephew and be scary overprotective of him. “I don’t care if you think you’re nearly invulnerable at your age, do you have ANY IDEA what type of trouble your mother got us into when we were growing up? Or even when she just started hero work?”

Conner Kon-Cepts:

His sort-of-aunts can be his adoptive moms and be much better to him than his biological dads ever were to him in the comic canon. Kon actually being allowed to be close to other Superman family members!!! I need it like the air I breathe. Kon could get to know a Luthor that isn’t trying to hurt him or use him. Someone who defies part of why (Kon thinks) Superman could never accept a thing like him. 

(I have too many things to say to put in a brief bullet point just know that he’s my fav little boy and I think that he deserves parents who would love him unconditionally and Lena and Kara deserve to live a slower life where they can be cute and domestic)

(If he’s raised by these two then I can give a solid reason as to why we just ignore all the blatant misogynistic and horny writing from the 90s comics that made me really uncomfortable and didn’t completely fit with his given backstory especially with how over the top the specialization was. It helps make up for that)

Kon has to deal with being constantly compared to his two genetic fathers mirroring how Kara and Lena both are constantly being compared to Superman and Lex Luthor as they are the female counterparts of those two more infamous members in their respective families

Kara and Kon have very complementary stories and could become what the other needs to fill a hole in each of their hearts. Canon is way too personally tragic. I’d rather have a bittersweet world that’s also soft so I can spend more time with slow paced character analysis.

(In the beginning, Kon’s much more timid given he’s still so young and is coping with being rejected by superman. The tone at the beginning of the story is very serious. As the story unfolds, kon will loosen up to be goofier like his comic counterparts personality)

Both Clark and Lex don’t deserve this kid in any way. If all they are gonna do is mistreat or neglect him in their own ways, Kon is better off with his aunts. 

Conclusion:

Kara and Lena can be happy together by fully trusting themselves with each other in domestic bliss for once AND Kon doesn’t have to cry his eyes out knowing he’s an unwanted experiment child who is “undeserving” of family and home who never got to experience childhood

Everyone who's always saying “you can’t trust a Luthor” better shut their trap when Kara walks in with Kon-El Luthor, her newly adopted son, and her fiancé, Lena Luthor. These new moms will tear you apart if you try to instill that internal hatred of being a Luthor in their son’s young mind. 

Kara and Lena both defying what people say about them and instead raising a well adjusted boy from both their warring families. 

Kon is gonna be raised by a true power couple.

DC refuses to deliver on giving this boy a home or parents so I’m gonna do it instead. Just look at the family they could be together:

(FYI: This has nothing to do with the version of Superboy in the Young Justice cartoon TV show, so if you’re only familiar with that you may be a bit confused about this Superboy who that one was loosely based on. This whole punk fitted kid is indeed a real character and I stay pretty close to his original design from 1993.)

[ur-favorite-queer-queen]

Enemies to Lovers

For Maribat March day 23 theme enemies to lovers

Master List

“Kent’s coming over.” Damian stated at breakfast, none of the other Wayne’s seemed phased by this, none but one. 

“Again?” At Damian’s nod she continued, “I’ll be in my room or the Batcave so don’t bring him there.” 

"He will also be bringing a friend over from that exchange program his school did with the one in London." Damian added, Marinette tensed a little bit but didn’t say anything else.

"Is Jon bringing a stranger over a good idea?" Tim asked.

"Tt, Kent said that he would make sure the boy wouldn't wander." Damian answered, after 9 years in the manor he still hadn't gotten rid of his tt habit. 

"I'll be in my room then, I don't want Jon or his friend bothering me." Marinette announced to no one's surprise.

“Marinette,” She turned to look at Dick, “Why don’t you like Jon? This has been going on for almost a year now. Surely you could give him another chance. Or at the very least his friend?” 

“Not interested.” And with that she finished her breakfast and went to go help Alfred with cleaning the dishes, like she did every morning. 

Damian watched his younger half blood sister go, frown evident on his face. Marinette Wayne had been living with them for over a year now. While she was now 16, her opinion of one Jonathan Kent still had not changed. 

After Bruce had a one night stand with her mother she had been born 9 months later, Sabine having no intention of telling Bruce. What she did not expect was that 15 years later she and her husband would be guilty of negligence and emotional abuse of Marinette and custody would be handed to her bio father. Aka Bruce Wayne. 

Marinette changed her last name to Wayne and left her life in Paris behind. There was not much left for her there anyways. But she had never told her new family why she was so insistent on leaving Paris behind. More specifically who she was leaving behind.

The Waynes had gotten used to her bubbly personality in the manor, so they were shocked that when they sent her off to Gotham Academy she was dubbed the ‘Ice Princess’ the next morning.

Turns out after what happened in Paris, she refused to open up to anyone. Most days she was found sketching in her sketchbook, always alone. She still got straight A’s and even participated in a few clubs but never made one friend. It was concerning, how much she resembled Damian in that sense.

One day after patrol, after Marinette headed off to bed they started discussing Marinette's social life. Tim had joked that since she's such a ray of sunshine around them that she should meet Jon. 

This idea was met with positive reactions, all of them agreeing that Jon would be a good influence for her. He was also her age so that was a plus. And he was Damian's first friend, perhaps he could be Marinette's.

That weekend they were proven wrong. Very wrong. Marinette refused to be in the same room as Jon, and when trying to gently push the boundaries she had set, she grew hostile. Something they had never seen from her for as long as they had known her. 

One of their first thoughts was that she was scared of Jon, since he was half Kryptontian. But that idea was quickly shut down after Jason brought up the time she roasted Superman to his face. And had no regrets. 

Then they figured it was because he was still a stranger to her. So they had him over more often. But after 2 months they realized that wasn’t the case either. Yet, none of them had the slightest clue why she was so against Jonathon Kent. 

Not even Jon knew. All Jon knew was that whenever he walked into the same room as Marinette she grew annoyed. He knew she disliked him but that wasn’t what he was confused about. What made him confused was that he could sense her fear. She was scared of him, and he had no idea why. 

He thought about telling the Batfamily, thought about telling Damian, but how would it go over that the latest addition to the Batclan was scared of him. Especially knowing how paranoid and protective they could be. So he just stuck to avoiding her at all costs, it wasn’t that big of a deal anyways. 

Marinette didn’t see Jon as an enemy per se she saw him as an enemy, but he was just someone she strongly disliked, she had her reasons. And while Jon definitely didn’t see Marinette as an enemy, the more she ignored him, and he would need to ignore her, started to grate on his nerves. If she was in a room that he was going to enter he would have to wait for her to leave and vice versa. It was getting tiring and he was starting to dislike her more and more to the point she almost became his enemy. 

Today would be no different except for one detail. That detail being a blonde haired, green eyed, sunshine child that reminded Jon of himself. While Adrien was a little too naive for his taste, they had gotten along great and he wanted to introduce him to Damian. 

Adrien had seemed intrigued by the idea of meeting a Wayne. Apparently his father used to be a businessman and despite the fact he was from France and only moved to London a year ago, he knew of how famous the Waynes are. 

Now here they were, in his dad’s car going to Wayne manor. 

“Okay, you remember what I told you right?” Jon questioned Adrien, he was making sure the boy was prepared and didn’t accidentally stumble upon the Batcave or anything relating the Waynes to the Bats.

“Yes I know, no wandering around the manor, it’s too big and I’ll get lost. No staring in awe at the Waynes, they’re not the celebrities the press makes them out to be. And if I see a girl with dark hair, blue eyes, and looks to be a head shorter than me, I am to walk away immediately in the other direction and pretend I didn’t see her.” Adrien listed off. 

“Perfect!” Jon, exclaimed he was going to add more but his dad interrupted him. 

“Okay boys we’re here, I hope you have a good time Adrien.” 

“Thanks Mr. Kent, I will!” Adrien cheerfully replied as he followed Jon out of the car. Sometimes this boy reminded Jon too much of himself. 

“Master Jon, lovely to see you again. Is this your friend?” Alfred greeted them at the door.

“Yep! This is Adrien Graham de Vanily, Adrien this is Alfred, the Waynes butler but is more like a surrogate grandfather if anything.” Jon introduced. 

“Nice to meet you Mr. Alfred.” Adrien stuck out his hand to shake. 

“It is nice to meet you too Master Graham de Vanily, please just call me Alfred.”

“Then you can just call me Adrien, Alfred, my last name is such a mouthful.” 

“Of course Master Adrien, now will you two be staying for dinner?” 

“I don’t know, is it okay if we do?” Jon answered, secretly asking if she would be okay with it.

“It’ll be okay Master Jon. I will inform the others we will be having two guests stay with us for dinner.” Alfred led them inside, “Master Damian should be in the gaming room.” And with that he left. 

“Come on, Damian is probably setting up some games for us to play.” Jon grabbed Adrien’s hand and started dragging him down a hallway. 

Marinette could hear when Alfred had opened the door for Jon and his friend, she didn’t have super hearing but she had trained her ears for listening for certain things. Like the front door opening. 

After a few minutes Alfred had come to tell her the two would be staying for dinner. It wasn’t ideal but she could live with it, all she had to do was give Jon and his friend the cold shoulder for at most an hour. Nothing new to her.

Now a whole hour had passed and she was getting hungry. She still had another hour till dinner so a small snack would be fine. But leaving her room posed the risk of running into Jon or his friend, and she didn’t want to risk an interaction with either of them.

Both of them are with Damian right now. There are no bathrooms near her room or the kitchen. If she hurries it will only take her 10 minutes to get to the kitchen, grab the cookies she made earlier, and come back to her room. And since Damian was banned from the kitchen this week, and both of his new friends are stuck with him, they shouldn’t be anywhere near the kitchen. 

Of course when was the universe ever on her side. She was about to open the kitchen door when someone she thought she would never have to see again uttered her name, “Marinette?” 

She knew the voice. It was the same voice that told her to stay quiet all those years ago when a vicious liar ran her mouth. The same one that said he was on her side then abandoned her the second things got too tough for him. The same one that didn’t speak up whenever she tried to defend herself, instead saying not to rock the boat. And now the owner of that voice was in her home. 

She steeled her face into something cold and emotionless, despite the fear she felt in her stomach and turned to face him, “Agreste.”

“It’s Graham de Vanily now.” He corrected, both forgetting/not noticing the two other people there. 

“Pretty sure it’s Agreste, you know, just like your father.” She bit back, venom laced into every word. 

“He’s not my father, not anymore.” He replied, fists clenched at his sides, staring her straight in the eyes, confusing the other two boys.

“You sure, because you’re exactly like him, you know.” She raised an eyebrow and matched his gaze. 

“I am nothing like him.” Adrien took a threatening step forward and that’s when Damian immediately stepped in front of Marinette, wanting to protect his little sister from this person who just threatened her. Damian was about to ask something but was cut off when Marinette moved around him to face Adrien. 

“Really? Both of you put your own wants and desires above the well being of other people. Your father the people of Paris, and for you it was me.” Jon saw she was visibly shaking, from fear or anger he wasn’t sure. Both emotions were pretty strong for her, and when he focused on Adrien all the boy felt was guilt. 

“Look Mari I’m-” He was cut off by Marinette’s angry shout. 

“You would think that after all you put me through you would at least have the dignity to not call me by a nickname that friends are only allowed to call me. You know, people who actually care about me!” 

“Marinette, I’m sorry okay, that was really dumb of me!” Adrien shouted back. 

“Save it! You can pretend to regret your actions all you want, but people like you don’t change! That’s something you taught me!” Snack forgotten, Marinette ran back to her room and slammed the door. Locking it, she slid down the back of it and just cried. 

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do Graham de Vanily. How do you know my little sister? Why did she react to you like that? What did she mean by ‘all you put her though?’...” As Damian kept spitting out question after question Jon followed Marinette. Her cries were the only thing he could hear right then and there. 

As he made his way closer to her, the cries stopped, only tiny sniffles coming out. “What do you want Kent?” He could hear the shaking in her voice no matter how much she tried to cover it up. 

He sat down, his back resting on the closed door thinking about what he should say. “I wanted to see if you were okay.” 

“I find that hard to believe. You wanted answers didn’t you?” She hiccuped in between words.

“A little bit.” 

“Well once upon a time there was a teenage girl who wore rose colored glasses all the time. She saw the world in rainbows and sunshine, never knowing of the darkness. Then one day a lying fox came into her life, spreading her tall tales. The girl tried to warn her friends and family but they didn’t listen. The fox ripped off the girl’s glasses and forced her to see the world for what it really was. The girl’s love at the time came to her and told her to keep silent, after all the fox’s lies weren’t hurting anyone. It was then she noticed that the boy wore the same glasses she did, only his were much stronger than hers had ever been. But she loved him, so she believed him, that everything would turn out okay, that if it didn’t he would be by her side. 

Slowly those around the girl turned on her, despite her doing nothing wrong. The boy who she once loved left her the second things got tough, never letting her stand up for herself. Soon the lying fox had gotten to her parents, things escalated from there. Now the girl moved to live with her bio family and everything was fine for a time. But then a boy who saw the world in sunshine and rainbows came around, and she was reminded of her past all over again.” Marinette finished her tale, her hiccups had faded away. 

“You don’t like me because I remind you of Adrien?” He hesitantly asked. 

“You don’t just remind me of him. Every time I see you I see him. But you’re also different from him. I don’t know. When you’re all happy and optimistic you're like him, but you also know how to be serious, which is something he could never do. I don’t know how to explain it but I thought if I kept you away from it would be alright. I really messed up didn’t I?” Marinette tried to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. 

“Kind of. But if you want we can start over.” Jon suggested, he wouldn’t mind getting to know the Marinette Damian talked so fondly about, not that Damian would ever admit it. 

He heard the lock unlock and he stood up as the door opened. He turned around and there was Marinette, her eyes were a little red and she had tears stains on her cheeks but she looked much better than before. 

She stuck her hand out, “Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Marinette Wayne.” She looked up to look in his eyes and wondered if they were always so blue. And oh god please say she didn’t start blushing!

“Nice to meet you Marinette. I’m Jonathan Kent, but you can call me Jon.” Jon took her hand and shook it, his eyes looked into hers and he couldn’t help but think they looked so beautiful when they weren’t glaring at him. Unfortunately, Damian’s scream broke them out of their daze.

“ANSWER ME!!!” 

“We better go help him.” Marinette pulled her hand back. 

“Yeah we probably should.” Jon replied but Marinette was already racing to where they left the boys. Jon ran to catch up with her, mentally berating himself for thinking his friend’s sister was cute. 

Marinette on the other hand was mentally berating herself for thinking that someone she used to dislike so much was now cute. Not to mention he’s her brother’s best friend. Well, Damian doesn’t have to know she thinks that.

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I’m back from the dead! As I said before in What If... (which you can find on my master list day 22) school sucks and has been burying my grave so I had to focus on that for a while. But I have this and What If... done and am planning on doing the other days I have not crossed off on my Master List. 

This took so long to write and I’m already planning a part 2. Anyways hope u enjoyed!

@maribatmarch-2k21 

[fruitcoops]

Have you ever seen where they get kids to ask the players tough questions and there all dress up and have fake beards and stuff. Maybe you could do that with Jules and Katie asking the team all these really hard questions?????

Thank you for giving me an excuse to spend an hour and a half watching adorable kids ask questions and melt the hearts of celebrities. You’re my hero. There are no fake beards here, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! Sweater Weather characters belong to the incredible @lumosinlove!

“These chairs are so small,” James said as he scooted closer to the table. He nearly knocked Talker over with his elbow as the four of them squeezed in; the two kids on the other side shared a look.

“Ready, everyone?” Dorcas asked. When she received six thumbs up, she turned to the camera with a cheerful smile. “Hello, Lions fans, and welcome to Lion Pride! We have a couple of very special guests today to do the introductions.”

“Hello! I’m Katie and I’m six!” She held up six fingers and all four hockey players melted a little bit.

“I’m Julian, and I’m ten.” He waved, a little shy.

Dorcas smiled. “And how are you two related to our favorite Lions?”

Katie lit up and pointed behind the camera. “That’s my dad!”

There was a chuckle in the background. “Can you tell them my name, mon chou?”

“Pascal Dumais, but everyone calls you Dumo.” She swung her legs and her tulle skirt fluffed out.

“Remus Lupin is my older brother,” Jules said with a grin. “But Finn thought he was my dad.”

“It was an honest mistake!” Finn protested around a laugh. “Cut me some slack, Little Loops!”

“Do you want to do the intros for the guys, too?” Dorcas asked. Katie tugged on Jules’ sleeve.

“Can I go first?” she whispered. When he nodded, she hopped out of her chair and ran to the other side of the table, tapping each player on the shoulder. “This is Pots, Talker, Harzy, and Sirius.”

“Aw, man, I didn’t get to do any of them,” Jules pouted.

“You can ask the first question,” Dorcas said, hiding her smile behind her clipboard. “A quick reminder for our Lions: if you refuse to answer any of these, it means you hate children. Take it away, Jules!”

“Okay.” He cleared his throat and looked across the table with a solemn expression. “How many sticks have each of you broken?”

“Oh, that’s a tough one,” James mused. “A lot, but not always on purpose.”

“I haven’t broken that many,” Talker said. “I’ve forgotten to return quite a few to the rink after games, though. I think I have about five in my trunk that I keep meaning to put back.”

“Maybe…ten? Fifteen?” Finn rested his chin on his hand. “I should start a tally board.”

“Too many,” Sirius laughed. “I need to be more careful.”

Katie wiggled in her seat as she picked up the question card. “Why do you swear so much?”

Matching expressions of shock painted all four players’ faces. “Have we sworn in front of you?” Finn asked in a small voice.

“Yeah.”

“Mon dieu, I’m the worst person on earth,” Sirius murmured as Talker leaned his forehead on the table.

James opened and closed his mouth a couple times before answering. “Uh. Well. I don’t know, Katie. Instead of answering, I’m going to take this time to personally apologize to you and your dad, who is laughing his a—his rear end off in the back, as well as promising to form better habits.”

“If you could be any superhero, who would it be?” Jules asked, seemingly unfazed by the previous question. Wordlessly, Sirius gestured to his Captain America t-shirt.

“Spiderman,” Finn said without hesitation. “He’s the coolest.”

James unzipped his jacket to reveal a Superman shirt. “We didn’t coordinate this,” he said, tilting his head toward Sirius. “But yeah, Superman’s the best.”

Talker thought for a moment. “I really like Hawkeye. Are we talking Marvel or DC here?”

“Anything.”

“Anything? Hmm. I’m going to go with the Flash, then.”

“Nice.” Jules reached over to give him a high-five.

“I got Jules’ approval, everyone else can go home.”

“What’s your greatest fear?” Katie asked, still swinging her legs.

The table went silent. Sirius turned to Dorcas. “Is this the plan? Get us rolling with fun stuff and then give the hard ones to the five-year-old in a princess dress?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Cool. Well, munchkin, I don’t like bugs and I’m not a huge fan of the dark.”

“Vegetables,” Finn said sagely, which sent both kids into a fit of giggles and made all the adults break into sunny smiles. “God, you guys are cute.”

“Pomeranians freak me out,” Talker answered once they had calmed down a bit. “They have those tiny little eyes and sharp teeth.”

James shrugged. “I’m not a fan of heights.”

“I thought you wanted to be Superman?” Jules frowned. “He flies all the time.”

“I think I’d be less afraid of heights if I knew I could fly.”

“So you’re afraid of falling, not heights.”

James looked to the camera. “And now I’m getting psychoanalyzed by a ten-year-old. Uh, yeah buddy, I guess so.”

“Hmm.” Jules looked back to the question card. “Who would win in a fight, you or our moms?”

“Your moms,” Talker said immediately as the others nodded. “No contest.”

“How would we even get in that situation?” Sirius asked. “What the did we do to make the nicest women in the world that mad?”

“Stole brownies,” Katie said with great gravity for one so young. “Mom says you four are the worst about it.”

“Mom wouldn’t even have to fight you.” Jules cocked his head to the side. “I feel like she could just give you a disappointed look and that would be enough. Katie, your turn.”

“Yay!” She brightened again. “What is your favorite cereal?”

Sirius smiled. “Fruit Loops.”

“Cheerios,” Talker said. “They’re good for you physically and emotionally.”

“I’m with Talkie on this one,” James agreed.

Finn gave them all disappointed looks. “You’re so old. Mine’s Lucky Charms.”

“Okay, Leprechaun Boy,” James snorted. Finn reached over and smacked the back of his head. “Hey!”

“Do you ever play hockey at home?” Jules asked. “I feel like Sirius doesn’t have to answer this one since it’s so obvious.”

Finn laughed. “Does tapping a puck around on the carpet with brooms counts?”

“Yeah, that counts.”

“Then yeah, sometimes.”

“I have no space in my apartment to play hockey,” Talker said. “Though I plan on moving someday and then the answer will be yes.”

“I made a rink in my backyard.” James smiled slightly. “Lily likes to skate sometimes while I run drills.”

“My turn, my turn!” Katie scooted her chair closer. “Okay. Out of everyone on the team, what two people would you take with you on a dessert island?”

“Desert,” Jules corrected quietly.

“Desert island. Are there deserts on islands?”

“I think they mean like super sandy beaches with no people on them.”

“Oooooohhh.”

James mouthed a thank you to Dorcas, who gave him a thumbs-up in return. The other three looked at the kids with unbearable softness. “Well, I’d feel awful if I took your dad with me, so I think I’m going to go with Finn and maybe Kasey. We’d have a blast.”

“Nice, dude.” Finn fist-bumped him. “Unfortunately for you, my choices are going to be Leo and Logan, since I already know we could live together without starting a war on the third day.”

Sirius thought for a second. “I think Nado would actually be able to survive on a desert island, so I’ll bring him along, and for the second one…maybe Kasey? Yeah, Kasey’s cool.”

In the ensuing silence, Jules gave him a significant look. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

“You’re not on the t—” The realization hit him like a truck; his eyes went wide and he slumped in his seat as the others burst out laughing. “Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.”

“Your own fiancé.”

“Please don’t tell him.”

“He’s gonna laugh so hard,” Jules cackled, leaning back in his chair. Even the camera crew was losing it in the background. Dorcas had to step out of frame. “You’re never going to live it down.”

“Well, the first person I would bring with me is Remus Lupin, because he’s read a lot of books and definitely knows how to survive on a desert island,” Talker said around his snickering. “And then I’d bring Cap, because God knows that would get entertaining after Loops finds out about this. The sarcasm would be off the charts.”

“Okay, next question.” Dorcas came back into view, still grinning. “Jules, go for it.”

“Can I ask Katie’s question again so Sirius can give a better answer?” he asked gleefully. Dorcas hesitated, then shook her head. “Bummer. What was cool when you were young that isn’t cool now?”

“When?” Finn looked scandalized. “I’m 24!”

“Yeah, and?”

“Ugh. Um, maybe Furbies? People were really into Furbies when I was in high school, though I can’t say I’m sorry to see them go out of style.”

James bit his lip in thought. “Tamagotchis.”

“I loved those things!” Talker said excitedly. “My sisters and I used to go nuts with those things!”

Sirius smiled. “Lite Brites.”

Finn’s eyes went wide. “I forgot about those!”

“Regulus and I each had one and we loved them. That was the only thing we agreed on and we used to sit—” He paused for a second to laugh. “—we used to sit in the middle of the ice rink in the backyard, still in our skates and everything, and do Lite Brites for literal hours.”

“That’s so cute, oh my god.” Talker shook his head. “What a nostalgia trip.”

Katie knelt on her seat and rested her arms on the table. “Who skates faster, you or me?”

“You,” all four answered in unison.

Jules rolled his eyes, but he was clearly hiding a smile. “How many push ups can you do?”

“How many can you do?” James countered. A flash of competition lit on Jules’ face and all the guys grinned. “Uh-oh, there’s the Lupin glare.”

“How about we have a little competition?” Dorcas suggested. “See how many everyone can do in thirty seconds?”

“Absolutely,” Finn said. The four of them had a little bit of trouble getting their knees out from under the kid-sized table, but eventually they succeeded and gathered in the middle of the room. “Katie, are you joining us?”

She smiled innocently. “No, I know I’d win.”

“Get ready.” Dorcas pulled her phone out as they knelt. “On your marks, get set, go!”

The guys went easy on Jules from the outset, but they made it look like those pushups were the hardest exercise they had ever done in their lives. Talker took a second to dramatically wipe his forehead and James’ wheezing was almost comical; Jules, however, was giving it his best shot. When the timer finally went off, Finn collapsed with a groan. “I forfeit.”

“Did I win?” Jules panted, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“You did, congratulations!” Dorcas put her timer away and winked at the camera as they headed back to the table. “Great job, everyone. Katie, your turn.”

“Do you live in a mansion?”

“I live in an apartment,” Finn said.

“Same.”

Sirius shook his head. “My house might be big, but it’s not a mansion.”

“Does a two-story house count as a mansion?” James asked. “No? Then no, I don’t.”

“Who is your least favorite person on the team and why?” Jules turned to Sirius with raised eyebrows. “Are we going to have another desert island problem?”

Sirius threw his hands in the air, speechless, as the other three cracked up. “Jules, can I adopt you?” James begged around his laughter. “Please?”

“You’ll have to fight my mom for that, I think.”

“My least favorite person on the team is James Potter,” Sirius sighed. “Not the person I’m getting married to.”

“We could get married. Lily might mind, though.”

“Full offense, but I know way too much about you to ever consider that.”

James ruffled his hair and turned back to the kids. “My least favorite person on the team is Remus Lupin, because he ran me over in practice the other day.”

Finn side-eyed him. “Didn’t you trip him after he stole the puck from you?”

“He ran me over.”

“Sure, Pots. Um, my least favorite is Kasey Winter. He threw ice at me while we were in the ice baths.”

“Logan took my Gatorade last week and hid it all over the rink,” Talker said. “I’ll never forgive him for such a crime.”

“Oh, I like this one!” Katie exclaimed as she looked at her card. “What’s the best birthday party you’ve ever had?”

“My tenth birthday was at Red Robin and I got a Power Ranger outfit.” Talker grinned. “I was the coolest kid on the block.”

“My eighteenth birthday was pretty fun,” Finn said. “There was a bouncy house and Alex almost broke it because we were jumping too hard.”

“Does it have to be my birthday?” James asked. “Because my son’s first birthday party was awesome.”

“Why?”

“He threw cake in Sirius’ face and a food fight broke out in the backyard.”

“That was a pretty great day,” Sirius agreed. “My last birthday party was my favorite.”

“You spent the night with us!” Katie said happily.

“I did, yeah,” he laughed. “And I had a really good time.”

Jules perked up when he read the next question. “I love this one! Do you have a lucky pair of underwear?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, totally.”

“Of course I do.”

“Is there a superstition I don’t have?”

Jules looked especially pleased with those answers as Katie picked up her card. “This is the last one,” she warned. “And it’s super important and super hard. What kind of dog would you be and why? You can take your time, I don’t mind.”

“Thank you, Katie, we’ll need it,” Talker said as he desperately tried to contain his smile. “I’ll go first, if nobody minds. I would be a border collie because one, I love them; two, they have a lot of energy; and three, they love making friends.”

“That’s a good one,” she said seriously. “They’re also very soft.”

“Yes, they are.”

Once Finn managed to suppress his quiet laughter, he raised his hand. “Can I go next?” Katie nodded. “I’d be an Irish setter. They have red hair and they’re really affectionate. Plus, I met one the other day at the park and haven’t stopped thinking about him.”

“This was a tough question, Katie, but I think I’m going to go with a golden retriever,” James said after a moment. “They’re good family dogs and they like to be on the ice with those big ol’ paws.”

“That’s what I was going to say!” She beamed at him. “Sirius, you don’t have to go. I already know what you’d be.”

He raised his eyebrows, looking highly amused. “Do you now? Can everyone else know, too?”

“Well, it’s obvious,” she said. “You’d be Hattie. She looks just like you and she gives the best hugs.”

A small puff of air left Sirius’ lungs and he blinked as James reached over and patted his shoulder. “Oh. Okay.”

“That wraps us up,” Dorcas said, looking between them with a soft smile. “Any closing statements from our guest stars?”

“Ready?” Jules muttered to Katie, who nodded rapidly. “On three. One, two, three!”

“Go Lions!” they shouted in unison with matching grins. The camera crew cheered and the players applauded, all laughing.

“Thank you for tuning in, everyone! Remember to like and subscribe for more content.”

[unlikelyempathpruneauthor]

Family Support

A/N: Okay so you know how in season 7 episode 11 Reid was at the convention talking and like no one was really interacting with him there beside that one dude. I felt really bad cus he looked really sad that prentiss and that other lady were getting attention….sooooooo what if like reader surprised him by bringing along their kids. sorry this might be bad lol, no one really requested it I just thought of it. so enjoy!

When Spencer told you he had a convention to go to with prentiss and a criminal author, you were very excited for him. Whenever he had one of these, he would get nervous but you would remind him that he was gonna do great. You knew it was very hard for him to talk in front of  people, but he tried his best. You knew he did. After the conventions, he would get a little sad because no one would ask him questions or interact with him either during or after the convention.

“I don't know why no one gets me, I mean they're there for a reason right? They should get my jokes and sayings right?” he would say to you as you came to comfort him after putting your two kids to sleep and laid next to him while he rubbed your belly carrying your third kid, you weren't far along, but you recently started showing. “Well spence, they don't have an iq of 187 or even have 3 phds and 2 BA’s handsome.” you said as he smiled at your comment.

“Right you’re right, i'm never doing those again, im terrible at talking.” he groaned as he placed his pillow on his face as he mumbled a little more making you giggle at your husband.

He would almost always do that when he came back from those conventions, so this time you were going to surprise him with your kids to see their dad talk about what he does. Your kids, Franklin and Diana, knew what you and Spence did, but not the specifics, of course, but then again they were not like normal kids. They inherited their father's smarts, and some of yours too, but you knew the smarts mainly came from him.

Their brains and knowledge aren't the same like most 9 and 6 year olds. They are a replica of Spencer in so many ways, but he would always tell you they look like you.

You told Hotch you were going, and he understood completely, you happily took your kids and headed to this convention.

As you went there it was filled with lots of people. Now you understood why he was scared, but you knew he would be great. As you took your seat you sat in the middle row and sat your kids. Prentiss was quick to see you and walked over to you.

“Hey y/n, i didn't know you were gonna come.” she said as your kids spoke up. “Hi aunty emily.” “Hi kiddos.” she said as she smiled looking at them. “Well i thought we could come here, to support daddy right?” you said as your kids nodded. She looked at you knowing you were hiding something, in a way she profiled you in seconds.

“Hey don't profile me.” you said as she playfully rolled her eyes. “Come on it's me, what's wrong?” she asked as you sighed.  “Okay fine fine, he said that he hates it when people come here and don't understand him and i thought why not bring people who do, and who better than those people being his family and kids and future boy or girl genius.” you said as she smiled at your love and support for spencer. Who knew years later you two would get married and have kids.

“y/n these kids are what 3 or 4? And future boy or girl genius isn't even born yet.” she said as you giggled.

“Actually Franklin's 9 and Dia is 6 and we know boy or girl genius already has lots of knowledge of this kinda stuff ” you said as she was shocked by their age. Time really was a son of a bitch when you had this job. “What? When were their bir-” she said as she got called. “Well tell me later, enjoy the show.” she told you as she walked back up to her chair. As Spencer walked out he looked very nervous, but you knew he was gonna end up doing great. He didn't notice you since you were in the middle row, which was expected. You just rubbed your small belly and whispered at the little fetus.

“Look it's daddy, Dia, he's gonna talk in a little.” Franklin whispered at his sister while she smiled looking at her dad. Then Patricia, the author spoke up, “In the end, I just write about violent crime. The real heroes are the people here beside me. Now, give a warm welcome to our next speaker, Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU.” she said as you looked at your kids in awe while they were clapping for their dad. “Its daddy!'' Diana said as Franklin sat her on his lap for her to see him. “Hi im, uh dr. Spencer reid… sorry. Uh. Hi. I am here today to talk to you about paraphilias and their relation to violent crime.” he said as everyone just coughed and looked at him blankly.

“Does anybody know what dendrophilia is?” he asked as Franklin raised his hand and you noticed putting his hand down quickly. “Yeah whoever that was?” he said as Dia moved and let him stand. “It's a fetish for trees.” Franklin said as everyone turned over to him shocked that a 9 year old was responding to such a question. Spencer just smiled at the way his son just answered that question out of nowhere. He then looked over to you and Dia, he smiled and appreciated you doing this.

“Yes, that's right, little man.” he said as he continued on with his talk and people were more and more intrigued on what he had to say. You could say your job here was done but you and your kids stayed till it was over. You loved seeing your husband talk about the things you do on a daily basis, and seeing him be happy talking about it with people who are interested makes you even more happy. Seeing him happy made you happy.

After it was over you all walked over to him and he just embraced your two kids in a hug. “I didn't know you guys were gonna be here? Who’s idea was it?” he said in a cheerful voice as the kids shrugged. “Definitely our little brother.” Dia said as Spence looked at her in shock, you were also shocked because you didn't know she even wanted a brother. This was the first time she even mentioned it, Franklin though, he knew he wanted a sister. “No! Our little sister Dia,” Franklin said as you giggled at the way they fought with one another about what you were expecting.

“Come on, we all know it was their idea.” you said as you rubbed your belly. “Of course, huh so  mommy wasn't up to this then?” he asked as your kids shook their heads. “Hmm alright i believe you. Did you guys like it?” he asked as you all waited for prentiss to be done. “Yes daddy, you looked like a superhero up there, like spiderman.” Franklin said as Dia butt in. “no definitely not spiderman franklin, he was like superman.” she said as you two laughed at their nonsense fighting, which was so funny, they were like older people in little kids bodies.

As you waited you sat at a table where they could draw and he embraced you in a hug “Thank you for bringing them, you didn't have to do that.” he said as you smiled at him. “Well you're welcome bubs, but i did have to.” you said as he pursed his lips, “Well not necessarily,” he said as you squinted, “actually i did because one we’re your family and you've been to lots of baseball games and dance recitals, it was our turn to come support you.” you said as he kissed you which made your kids giggle at the sight of you kissing. How did he get so lucky to be with an amazing woman like you. He knew you were the one since he met you and he knew even more now.

“Plus, I figured we could have a non negative talk about you complaining tonight.” you said sheepishly as he sensed your joke. “Please you like it when I complain. It's how we made that little guy.” he said as you playfully slapped him, “not in front of the kids.” you said.

“Or girl!” Franklin said as you laughed even more. “But no really i'm happy you came, made my day seeing our little man answer that question.” he said as he smiled and you smiled too seeing how happy he was made you happy. “I'm glad my love, that's what i'm here for.” you said as you looked at your happy family, your smart, and beautiful family.

[name-de-plume]

20 Regrets (or You Can Call Me Bruce)

I. In kindergarten arts & crafts, a classmate called my project ugly. Honestly, it looked like vomit- too much glue, not enough tissue paper. But I should've torn up his artwork instead of mine.

 II. In first grade, not knowing how  to process emotions, I knocked a girl over when she kissed me on the cheek. I also called her ugly. She wasn't and I didn't wash my face for a week. Her arm, broken from the accident, was in a cast for much longer.

III. In fourth grade, math stumped me. I just couldn't master my times tables like all the other kids. I broke a pencil every time I felt stupid. I seemed to have nothing but broken pencils.

IV. In 1994, Jack Kirby died. He created my favorite character, the Hulk. I missed my opportunity to write him  a thank you letter for a hero I could relate to.

V. In sixth grade, the school play: it was just a small role but damn! I wanted to be flawless, rehearsed relentlessly. I got so nervous I threw up on stage. Everyone laughed. I earned the name Puke Face.

 VI. When I was 15, dad left us. He explained that he found a new woman to start a family that he could love.  He never apologized.  I punched a hole in my wall wishing it was his face.

VII. I should've tried to make more friends. But I wanted more time for tv and comics.

VIII. Despite diligent studying,  I failed yet another math test. I don't remember hitting my locker that hard but school fined me for destruction of property.

IX. There will always be bullies. I thought I deserved the teasing so I didn't stand up to them. Except one... sort of. I killed his dog.

X. My grandparents always wanted to see me. I was just too busy or they lived too far away. Now I miss them and they're gone, so much further away than they've ever been.

XI. I don't think I saw my therapist long enough.

XII. I should've started exercising sooner.

XIII. Every time hunger trumped foresight and I ate off a taco truck. Would superman ever eat Kryptonite because it smelled good in a corn tortilla?

 XIV. How long did members of the Manhattan Project relish in their pride before the fallout of regret? You are the most beautiful thing  I've ever been a part of.

 XV. Sometimes I just don't know how to cope. Sometimes I just get angry. I try meditation and yoga, I try to find my Zen. But like Bruce Banner something green and ferocious rages inside of me. Sometimes I need to smash. Sometimes I need to feel your skull crack beneath my knuckles.

XVI. Rip the plaster off the walls of a temple, it's still a temple, still holy still beautiful. I'm sorry for how these fists try to redecorate your face, for the ugly colors they try to paint over your beauty. But maybe if you weren't so damn beautiful I could feel like I deserved you, wouldn't be reminded of things I am not every time you smile at me; maybe  if you were just a little bit damaged, I wouldn't feel so broken. I'm sorry for how my hands say I Love You.

XVII. I should have never let you stay. How did you love me? 

XVIII. I'm sorry that all I have are I'm-sorrys.

XIX. We both thought you could make me a better human.

XX. I thought your tears could wash the monster off of me.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Dobson’s favorite cartoon reviewed: The adventures of spandex girl in New York aka the Miraculous Ladybug movie

So THIS is not going to be about a Dobson comic, but rather with the lack of Dobson posting shit out here, I thought I give my opinion about something Dobson would have likely sperged out within the last few months. What could it be I want to talk about? The riots? The death of RBG? Cuties?

Are you insane? My brain may function better than Dobson’s, but even so I am not touching those subjects with a tong, seeing how I myself am lacking detailed knowledge on such subjects. No. I am talking about the cartoon that makes Dobson’s little brain (and dick) all tingly: Miraculous Ladybug.

For starters, let me just say that despite being an animation fan myself, I am not really into this show at all. For a magical girl show that goes on for over three seasons at this point, I just feel like nothing happens in it. Sure, A LOT of tokusatsu and magical girl shows run on repetitive monster of the week formulas, but overall they will still have some progression to themselves. Growing up with Sailor Moon, I always loved the first season and how it actually made me feel like things are increasingly at stake as the story progressed. Especially in the final episodes when the Senshis actually died protecting Sailor Moon and it was only thanks to a Deus ex machina everyone was reincarnated again. As melodramatic as Sailor Moon could be, at least each story arc had a beginning and ending that did not overstay its welcome. Ladybug meanwhile can be summed up as followed:

 Teenage girl is thirsty for obvious blond boy whose dad wants to get magic jewelry to necromance his comatose wife. Teenage girl gets magic jewelry and turns into heroine in ladybug mustered spandex suit that makes rule34 artists all tingly. Same goes for boy she has the hots for, only he becomes gimp catsuit shota bait. Bad guy transforms random citizens who feel down for some reason (often times connected to a blond whose family name Dobson can’t write) into action figure like super villains. Ladybug and Cat Noir defeat them, the damage is reseted, Ladybug and Cat Noir never figure out who the other one is despite things being so obvious Ray Charles could have seen that shit coming. Repeat not just for one, but ALL seasons so far and add as little as possible storywise to increase the roaster of characters, but not progress the plot.

 All that said, I can say that there are worse shows out there and for a show meant to sell toys to girls and be about a female hero, it is not THAT bad. But a) the creator is an asshole (think of functional Dobson) and b) there are still better shows to watch, even within the preteen magical girl genre, than this. Not to forget that this thing may be the indirect successor of Totally Spies and give certain people internet related fetishes within the next few years.

So, why am I believing Dobson would talk about the show at least for today more than he already tends to do on average? Because Ladybug actually got now a movie.

Well, it is called a movie, but in reality it is more of a 3 parter to start the fourth season if you really look into it. The thing is called Miraculous World: New York – United HeroeZ. It clocks in around 65 minutes and focuses on Marinette and Adrien in New York, teaming up with new heroes that are so unsubtlety promoted in this movie, I expect them to get their own spin off series by the end of next year so the showmakers can milk the cow even drier.

Let me try to elaborate in what is going to be a less than just a bit snarky summary with a few critical points and jokes at Dobson’s expense thrown in here. In other words, the typical biased youtube reaction channel/movie review.  Spoiler warnings are obvious and I promise than unlike certain pedos on youtube I am not going to focus on the assets of underaged French girls. I do warn however for increased levels of making a fool of myself by writing a multi page “mock summary” of this thing.

So because the movie is based on a children show, it has a very basic set up; Adrien and Marinette’s class is invited to spend one week in New York, because of a pointless international collaboration thing referred to as French-American Friendship week. The sheer existence of this showing that a) we needed any reason to get them there and b) this special was worked on LONG before COVID19 hit us all. And yes, I know animation takes its time to be done, I just think it is funny how in today’s international political climate and health situation this thing has become outdated already, when it is hitting the tv just now.

 At the same time, Adrien’s dad suspects that an artifact currently shown at a museum in New York may be a missing Miraculous that was owned by the Marquis de La Fayette and gifted to George Washington during the American Revolution. And yes, we are going there and you can guess what Hawkmoth’s goal this time is, while at the same time history gets fucked up the butt.

 But before we can get to any action in New York, we have to deal with the one thing Ladybug is known for best: Cringy shipping bait.

 Look, I know that shipping is a part of magical girl shows in general, but the shit going on in this cartoon is not only drawn out tediously even for children tv standards, I find it makes some characters outright dumb and unlikable. We get it Marinette, Adrien makes you tingle. But can you stop cringing your way through life around him in a manner that would make Tomoko Kuroki say that you are freaking pathetic?

I don’t want anybody else. when I think about Adrien I...

 Just three minutes into this movie she essentially melts away at a poster of Adrien and throughout the first 15 minutes she just simps away in the big blue yonder. For example by asking Adrien’s dad to allow his son to travel with the others to New York, obviously stumbling upon her words when she needs to remind herself that she can only see Adrien now as a friend and not love interest (because this is supposedly set after season 3, when she decided to go for the second price in form of the guy who plays guitar), insisting that she is only “friends” to the point even her best friend Alya gets fed up. Or when Marinette gets more than just “a bit” nervous at the chance of sitting on her flight to New York next to Adrien, resulting in her fucking that chance up so badly, I felt an headache approaching. 

Not gonna lie, I had to pause a few times because it got so cringy for me, I wondered why Dobson makes primarily jokes on Adrien’s expense when Marinette herself is female thirst personified. Even the movie seems to point out how the two are so obvious to each other, when Alya has the following to say about them: I can’t decide if they are the most cutest people I know, or the most embarrassing.

Thankfully it is at 18 minutes into it, we FINALLY get something of a conflict. While still on the plane (And Adrien and Marinette watching a sunset through a window) a villain shows up, trying to steal the jet engine midflight.

 Just roll with it

 Thankfully, before the plane can go down thanks to a Gremlin on the wing- I mean TECHNO PIRATE, the real stars of the movie show up.

 Wait, you thought this thing was going to be about Ladybug and Cat Noir being the primary heroes? WRONG!

 Okay, to put the summary on hold and explain what I mean: This “movie” introduces us to “United HeroeZ”, a group of American superheroes. Yeah, turns out Miraculous is essentially set in your average “Superheroes are everywhere, but primarily US dominated territory” world and this story is meant to introduce us to them and have Ladybug and Cat Noir team up in order to save the day. And while I don’t necessarily HATE the characters, I have to admit that I can’t help myself but snark quite a bit about them. Not only are they for the most part just expies of well known superheroes, the way how prominent two of them in particular are featured in this movie makes it very, VERY obvious that (As I stated earlier) this thing aims just to create a tie-in show for the creators to make more money of the property. Not just that, but their presence in a way reduces Adrien and Marinette’s importance as characters, even though the new ones at best would count as supportive characters overall. Which again makes me wonder, what does it say about Ladybug and Cat Noir’s “impact” in their own franchise when I actually find myself more interested in the side characters made to promote new toys, than the actual leads?

 Anyway, United HeroeZ defeats Techno Pirate and in doing so we are introduced to the main members of the group which are relevant for this movie:

So please, give an applause for…. MAJESTIA (aka actually decent Powergirl redesign/Non Superman)

 SPARROW (Aka yet another Robin that may get hit by a crowbar)

UNCANNEY VALLEY (aka The Shipper on Deck/Cleopatra in Tin Foil/Vision as your Waifu/the dumbest name you could have chosen for a character!)

NIGHT OWL (aka Alan Moore is going to be pissed!/Oh look, it’s Batman!)

You get where I am coming from when I call them expies, right?

 Anyway, with the plane safe the class finally gets to New York. Both Sparrow and Uncanney Valley get tasked to go undercover with the students and assure they are save during the trip, because plot reasons and New York is supposedly enough of a safe place that their services aren’t needed to fight bigger threats currently. Which confirms at the very least that a) this is not the Marvel Universe cause at this point the town may be ground zero yet again and b) a way more enjoyable version of the Big Apple than the real deal.

By the way, these are Uncanney (left) and Sparrow’s (right) civilian identities :

I can now imagine Dobson wanting to proclaim how problematic the character is for being a native American who looks the way she does. But believe me. It gets kinda worse in all the right ways.

 Also, we are 28 minutes into the movie and we are introduced to the dumbest thing in the movie yet. The arch enemy of the Condiment King; Hot Dog Dan.

A superhero hot dog vendor seller with a flying hot dog truck, whose hot dogs give you temporarily some random superpowers when you eat them. And it seems he uses hot dog tongs as weapons.

I don’t know what the people making this show take, but I am torn between wanting some of that myself and putting them into rehab.

 I really bring the character just up because he is as a concept in itself so ridiculous that part of me thinks he is a fever dream of Dobson. Otherwise he has no real bearing on what is going to happen on the rest of the movie. He is just relevant for a three minute long scene of a house roof party during which Adrien and Marinette dance for a bit.

 Speaking of relevance, the next day the class finally gets to do something on the trip that leads into conflict for our heroes to face. During a visit of the museum where the La Fayette related Miraculous is hold, Uncanny and Sparrow decide to play shipper on deck by forcing Marinette and Adrien in a room and attempting to set a really stupid plot into motion (and no, I don’t mean they enforce a reenactment of Steven Universe or something). At the same time the villains finally do something, when Hawkmoth (now in New York) turns Techno Pirate into his latest minion and have him attack the museum to steal a saber by La Fayette as distraction, while he takes the charm he is out for. Long story short: Our heroes FINALLY transform and have to fight with Uncanney and Sparrow against Techno Pirate on the roofs of Manhattan.

 And while I don’t think it is all that great of a fight, it still means something aside of Marinette cringing her way through the plot is happening and the heroes are actually in decent peril. Plus during the fight the movie gives me one of the funniest moments possible. You want to know what it is?

 Well, while fighting the bad guy, Cat Noir and Ladybug obviously trigger their miraculouses. And what does Ladybugs miraculous turn into this time, to help her develop a strategy to defeat the villain and save the day?

A bikepump.

 ... yeah, I am going to give all of you now 5 minutes to laugh it off. Believe me, I needed them too.

Sure, it is a cartoon and I doubt anyone working on the show is even aware of our favorite uncare bear, but come on. At this point the universe itself is either mocking Dobson or tries to set up the perfect opportunity for an obvious joke from my side.

Not helped by the fact that once the bike pump shows up, the dialogue between characters that follows is, and I quote:

Cat: A bicycle pump? What are you going to do with that?

Ladybug: I may have an idea, but you wouldn’t like it

 Anyway, believe it or not, the fight actually ends with a surprising shock moment. Cat Noir, while having his cataclysm powers active (you know, the powers that make him decompose anything he touches), being thrown by Techno Pirate at Ladybug, resulting in Uncanney protecting her and being turned into scrap metal. Which in turn causes Techno Pirate to make the acquaintance with Majestia’s fist, as Uncanney is more or less her adopted daughter and I guess she has seen what was going on (but did not interfere because the plot says so) until now, pummeling him so hard he flies through a few buildings and causes at least three 9/11 to happen on this day in New York.

So, yeah. Uncanney is dead. The heroes experiencing their darkest hour in the movie.

… welp, can’t have that for long, so less than 2 minutes later Ladybug uses the Magical bikepump…

5 minutes of laughter later

Got it out of the system? Good. As I was saying; She uses the fetish toy to reset all the damage done by the akumatized villain and in doing so fixes Uncanney too.

Welp, that was a waste of tension. Guess someone watched the entire Lars dying thing from Steven Universe.

So, damage undone, but Majestia and Night Owl pretty pissed at what happened, want Ladybug and Cat Noir to give up their miraculouses (I assume that is the correct plural) until they leave New York. You would expect this to result in some dramatic chase scene or confrontation with the older heroes, but because this movie has just like 22 minutes left and we need to close act two now, our heroes instead flee and end up in the sewers of New York.

There they do NOT team up with a group of mutated reptiles, but have a heart to heart talk (I never thought I would agree with Dobson on something, but I have to agree on this: The show is kinda fixated on having important stuff happening in sewer channels) that is sort of an argument Cat Noir and Ladybug also had during the fight. You see, because those two idiots haven’t  figured out their respective civilian identities yet (something even Sailor Moon would have figured out AFTER THREE SEASONS!) Marinette assumed that Cat Noir would be in Paris while she is in New York to keep the city save. And Adrien/Noir was okay with making the promise of keeping the city initially save, because his dad only allowed him on the trip the day after he made the promise. So when the two transform out of sight of the other in New York and meet, instead of asking some logical questions (like “where is Marinette/Adrien and why is Cat/Ladybug here?”) they kinda argue wtf Cat is doing here while Paris may be in danger.

Long story short, she is angry at him, he feels guilty for having disappointed her and the thing with turning Uncanney into scrap, Paris was attacked by Hawkmoth’s secretary unleashing temporarily some monster clone because Hawkmoth thought that distracts the heroes in Paris (and really just results in damage that makes a city that experienced the destruction of Notre Dame the year prior just feel numb) and because this is the turning point in the plot, our hero needs to do something just a bit too melodramatic. Which is that Adrien gives up his powers and runs away.

… so, up to the final part in which things to care about start to happen.

Hawkmoth now has the Miraculous and unleashes its Kwami who is this eagle themed little thing referring to itself as the “Kwami of Freedom”.

 … Yeah, this thing was NOT around for the last 200 years, wasn’t it?

 Anyway, it states that its powers are based on “freeing” people of limitations to achieve their full potential. What does that mean practically? It means that when Techno Pirate holds its powers on top of his regular powers increased by being akumatized, he can unleash some energy attack that removes moral inhibitions when getting hit by it.

… So it basically unleashes the Purge.

 Which is exactly what happens to Majestia and Night Owl, turning one into Man of Steel Superman causing nine additional 9/11s on top of the three prior (how the fuck did this movie manage to turn an American tragedy in a measuring unit?) and the other into All Star Batman.

Oh and it turns the President of the USA into a worse war monger than people accuse Trump of being.

Oh, this is NOT going to sit well with anyone...

… Yeah, sidenote: The president of the USA in this movie is essentially Michelle Obama who ALSO is a superhero with an American flag theme and besties with Majestica and Night Owl, trying to protect the exchange students. Because supposedly NOTHING better needs to be done. Once she gets hit by the “Freedom Feathers” or whatever you want to call the Kwami power, she pulls out the Football and activates turrets all over the USA, ready to blow up anything that moves into smithereens. Including at least 10.000 such turrets on the roofs of New York and a nuclear missile in the bay near the Statue of Liberty.

I’ll take it to the people with the eagle not the dove. If there is one thing that obedience is symptomatic of, it’s W-E-A-P-O-N-R-Y... WEAPONRY, from above!

(BTW, the rocket is animated like shit!)

I get the feeling someone on the production team is not the biggest fan of America.

 Anyway, with the heroes being useless and Marinette and Adrien mopping around for what happened during the battle (and Adrien being tricked by his dad to leave New York and get back on a plane cause this town is not save and Adrien can’t fucking stand up to his emotionally abusive father), Uncanney and Sparrow have to get the ball rolling so the day can be saved. Which means that Sparrow and Ladybug try to fight and distract people for time (off screen mostly), while Uncanney hijacks Adrien’s plane and brings him back to take up the gimp suit of Cat Noir again. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Uncanney, cause she is a robot, has figured out easily who Ladybug and Adrien really are cause scanning. Making our heroes literally dumber than a walking toaster.

 So the four finally together, fight Techno Pirate on the Statue of Liberty a second time (after some hijinx with another corrupted hero whose power is literally to create portals through doors, but he is irrelevant for anything so I skipped him up until now) and defeat him. He loses the Miraculous, Sparrow takes it on and becomes its next official owner, resulting in her costume turning into THIS

 So now we have the native American girl turn into an eagle based superhero with a costume that looks like out of a western based Lego set.

Real talk here: Unlike Dobson I do not believe that everything is political or offensive or some other shit. In fact I hate his comic where he talks about “skin color changes” of the black characters in Ladybug, because he essentially tries to create a race issue and tension where there is none, just because he is a social justice moron. Which gets especially funny when his ideas for a progressive female results in characters like the black rat pirat who kicks you in the face for being hetero or infantilizing the characters of Patty to make them visually more appealing to Max Karson.

That said, in this day and age, doing a character like that… kinda yaiks.

Like, on one hand I think the girl has an enjoyable personality and the design of her hero outfit is okay for a kids cartoon. It’s not like she also talks in some cartoonishly native way or has suddenly a tomahawk as a weapon.

On the other hand, it is kinda stereotypical from multiple ankles and unfortunately there is nothing to the character past this point. Oh sure, Sparrow has now Miraculous powers, but really, all she does now is just use her powers to nullify Techno Pirates influence on the adult heroes before Majestia manages to reenact the bad ending for Majora’s mask and that is it.

Granted,  there is Hawkmoth also almost starting World War 3, but that is really just happening at the site and dealt with almost instantly. To be more specific, because Ladybug and Cat Noir did not hand over their Miraculous, he lets Techno Pirate launch one of the missiles near the Statue of Liberty (worse president than Trump, honestly) but before the thing can hit anything, Majestia sweeps it away and throws it into the sun.

You know, if the show writers want to make Adrien’s dad even remotely “sympathetic” or interesting/intelligent, they increasingly fail. Cause I don’t know about you, but causing World War 3 does not really feel like it will benefit in bringing your comatose wife back.

Bottom line: Nuke has been burned, Techno Pirate gets defeated, all the damage reseted, Sparrow is now the official owner of the latest Miraculous and renames herself Eagle, everyone is happy, there is a big celebration for the class and Hawkmoth is convinced there might be other missing Miraculous all over the globe he wants to get his hands on, meaning season 4 may have more globe trotting Miraculous “action” once it starts.

And also the last scene of the movie shows Eagle and Uncanney meeting some other guardian of the Miraculous box who wants the Eagle charm, but she seemingly convinces him to team up, solidifying that this one hour “movie” was really just a backdoor pilot for a tie in series about an American centered heroine that is so big, a freaking monster truck could pass through this backdoor.

 Yeah, if you can’t tell, I am not a big fan of what I saw.

Look, I will openly admit that my opinion on this is in large parts already tainted by me not being part of the demographic which enjoys the show. So this was never going to be considered “good” in my opinion. That said, I tried to be neutral to it for the sake of fairness. And I kinda failed.

Sorry, but I genuinely do not think this is a good “movie”. First, with barely 65 minutes I don’t really consider it a movie and more of a tv special meant to lead into the next season of the show. Second, I expect of a movie based on a tv show to have slightly higher stakes and presentation value to it than what you would expect from any average episode it has to offer. Which this thing doesn’t. Oh sure, the animation is slightly improved in some scenes, but overall just the same. And frankly, the writing is just still as “bad” as in the original show, if in parts not even worse. Aside of the typical stables, such as the cringy romance that does not move forward but is kinda on the forefront, the main heroes stumbling more or less into the situations instead of being more active in their duties, Hawkmoth not even in a movie having a genuine plan aside of “get this, see how it will help me defeat two kids and fail”, the movie also just never manages to induce a proper escalation of conflict to make it feel like something “special”. For example, we have a shitton of temporarily corrupted heroes. Do Ladybug and Cat Noir ever properly face them off at one point or have meaningful/fun interactions with Sparrow and Uncanney or each other outside of the first three minutes of the movie? Nope! I can name a few movies based on animated shows that gave me enjoyment, even those following basic shonen anime rules. But this one isn’t really among them. And taking into account that I consider at least the Steven Universe movie enjoyable in a dumb way, that says something.

 There is also just the fact that it takes away from Ladybug and Cat Noir too much. Sure, I don’t like the romance stuff with them because I think it plays out in some of the cringiest way possible. But I would have been okay with them or other already established sidecharacters doing other stuff and having to face some conflict that is centered more around them.

Instead the movie finds this bizarre disbalance where it focuses too much and yet too little on completely new characters, that feel shoehorned in to create a starting point for a spin off, making Cat Noir and Ladybug secondary characters in their own movie.

I mean sure, I have seen many shonen anime based movies where there is a set of “movie only” characters interacting with our heroes, but they don’t take too much away from the heroes being heroes. Say what you want about the 13th movie of any long running shonen anime, at least Luffy, Naruto, Son Goku etc. are still the central characters of their respective franchise affiliated flic. Here however we take too much away from Ladybug and Cat, while at the same time focusing also too much on their “struggle” as Marinette and Adrien (or rather just Marinette making a fool out of herself while Adrien is utterly obvious to her behavior) while the major heroics are reserved for the movie characters only, that this entire thing should just be renamed “The Adventures of Mummy Robot and Not Robin, also starring two underaged kids that Dobson is obsessed about!”

 All that said, I will give it a few things.

1) Uncanney and Sparrow/Eagle, despite my jabs, are kinda enjoyable in terms of personality. So are their partners/parents (Majestica and Night Owl are actually the (adoptive?) mothers of their sidekicks and also a couple openly caling themselves love, so yay, L(GBT) representation) and if the show would ever decide to focus also a few episodes on other characters aside of Ladybug and Cat Noir, I wouldn’t mind to see them. I just don’t think they are the most original characters out there and I think I may speak for some fans of the show when I say it sucks, that when it comes to the “action” within this “action adventure show”, they take up the spotlight from the actual main characters.

2) The fight scenes against Techno Pirate were okay overall. Nothing mind blowing animation wise but okay for the standards of this franchise.

3) Eagle’s costume design is not the worst despite my jabs at it being “stereotypical”, at least under consideration of cartoon designs (again, I can think of more offensive shit from the 90s or the Dobbear himself)

4) Well, it wasn’t for me, but I can say it was at least still on the same level of quality as the show. Make out of that comment however whatever you want.

My verdict: Three out of five Dobson’s would approve this movie. The other two would rant about stereotypes and be too busy incest shipping Majestia with Uncanney based on one shot of the movie. And none of them would acknowledge the flaws that make the “movie” a badly disguised jumping point for a spin off that makes the Equestria Girls look subtle.

 Hope you got some enjoyment out of this rant that ironically may have been overall more retarted and detailed than anything Dobson may ever say in regard of this movie.

[myrandomfandomramblings]

Arrowverse Science Fair AU

~2004 National Highschool (Gr. 8-12) Science Fair

Projects:

Felicity Smoak (Gr. 9) – Computer software to detect card counters. She may or may not have hacked into online card games to test it (this wasn’t included in/on her project.)

Cisco Ramon (Gr. 8 or 9) – Piano playing robot. He thought it played better than Dante. His parents didn’t agree.

Caitlin Snow (Gr. 9) – Analysis of physiological response to various stimuli. She wanted to find stimuli that would help kids cope with traumatic experiences (say crashing their bike or losing their father.) If she was able to find something that made her mom show some/any emotion that would be a bonus.

Barry Allen (Gr. 9) – Growing crystals (lots of different and cool ones). His project started out as an attempt to make something special for Iris for her birthday but turned into an elaborate project. It ended up being a good choice because 1) it reminded Barry of his parents (the first science experiment they did together was grow Borax crystals on pipecleaner and 2) it followed Joe’s ‘your science fair project must make, not destroy things’ rule instated after Barry’s Gr. 6 project.

Alex (Gr. 9) and Kara (Gr. 8) Danvers – Birds in my Backyard. Eliza had insisted on Alex getting Kara involved in her science fair project this year. Alex was excited to show Kara the science fair experience she enjoyed but wanted to pick a topic she knew more about that Kara (her knowledge of math and science was intimidating enough without the superpowers). Seeing Kara’s interest in birds they decided to study birds in their backyard. With Alex’s design and Kara’s powers they built tall post’s and attached bird houses and feeders with differing properties. They then monitored which kinds of birds built nests and ate from where (with some help from Kara’s flight and X-ray vision). Alex also picked 5 nests from different species to chronicle the embryo and chick development. Kara enjoyed doing the project and learning about birds from Alex. The actual science fairs, not so much but those were Alex’s favourite part. Note: Streaky was locked in the house for the duration of the project so he wouldn’t eat any of the birds.

Winn Schott (Gr. 11) – Pop-up room/ room in a suitcase. Being in the foster system for the last couple years inspired Winn to design a room that collapsed to the size of a suitcase for easy transport but could expand in less than a minute into a nice-sized, fully-furnished, sound-proof room, so no matter how many times a foster kid was moved around they always had their own space and stuff. Also good for camping, travel and special short-term events (like waiting in line at conventions).

Lena Luthor (Gr. 5) – Oxygen absorbing/releasing crystal that could allow breathing underwater. After her Mum drown when Lena was four, she was determined to develop a simple way for people to breath under water. She was able to do just that by synthesizing a substance that absorbed and stored large amounts of oxygen then released it slowly (so if someone held in in their mouth, they could breathe underwater). She was happy and excited that her mom and older brother were interested in her project but a little frustrated and concerned that they were so focused on its ability to absorb all the oxygen from a room (in a big enough amount). Although she supposed it could be used in that capacity to control/extinguish fires. Note: although in elementary school, Lena got to compete against the high schoolers since her project was so advanced for her age.

Sara Lance (Gr. 11) – The Biomechanics of Dance and Martial Arts. As punishment for skipping classes, then sassing her teacher and principal when they tried to discipline her for skipping classes, Sara had to complete a science fair project. To make the best of it Sara chose something that interested her. In hindsight she wished she hadn’t. Her project was so good she was chosen to represent her school at the state and national science fair.

Ronnie Raymond (Gr. 9-12?)- Structural design to minimize Superman related damage in Metropolis. Ronnie was proud of his project and had enjoyed analyzing the powers of Metropolis’ hero, but he lost any chance he had at winning when he decided to leave his project to go flirt with Caitlin. At least Kara, whose project was next to his, seemed interested.

Hartley Rathaway – something to do with sound waves

Lily Stein (Gr. 11) – designing and comparing different miniaturized forms of renewable energy sources. She had some help from her dad.

Patty Spivot – Recreation of crime scene evidence using food models. A bunch of her friends (her whole cabin actually) from her summer camp for those interested in law enforcement came to support her.

-       Maggie Sawyer – seemed really interested in the bird project

-       Ralph Dibny – found every project that said it was OK to touch. His favourite was slime. To Patty’s surprise he didn’t break anything.

-       Dinah Drake – hung out with Patty most of the time. Talked to Hartley, beside her, about his project on sound waves for a bit (seemed kinda interested). Patty joined her when she got into a conversation with Sara, across the way, and Laurel about the implications of her biomechanics project in fighting and self-defence. The rest of the time they talked about that Vince guy from camp Dinah thought was cute.

-       Eddie Thawne – he hung out with Patty most of the time too but did do a lap of the fair with Iris, who was there supporting Barry, when she accepted his offer to buy her something at the concession.

Notable events:

- Clark came to see Alex and Kara’s project and brought James and Lois with him. Kara and Clark (very subtly) tested the models on the project beside them that had been abandoned and were said to be superman proof/resistant. They were very impressed to discover the models did indeed stand-up to heat vison, freeze breath and super-strength leading Clark to believe the student had a bright future. James spent most of his time talking to Winn about his pop-up room project because, “Don’t you think these would be way better than cubicles, the Daily Planet should definitely purchase some.”

- Cat Grant, a young reporter from the National City Tribune pushing a stroller, came around and interviewed all the contestants because, “What better place to find the next world changing innovator or innovation” as she put it when she stopped to talk to Clark (more like flirt Kara thought). Alex used Clark distracting Cat as an opportunity to play with the baby in the stroller. This was the only time during the entire science fair Alex was distracted, except maybe when Maggie had come, but they mainly talked about the project like Alex did with everyone, which left Alex wondering why it felt different. During their entire interview Cat called Kara Kira, much to her annoyance. At least the baby seemed to like her. This interview sparked a conversation between Kara, Lois and Clark about journalism which Iris overhead while she was visiting Barry and joined in.

- Graduate students Ray Palmer and Curtis Holt were volunteer judges and ticket takers. Curtis wore a varsity jacket over his shirt and tie which covered his name tag, but at every project he judged he would describe every aspect as terrific, so the contestants started calling him Mr. Terrific. While judging Barry’s project they began a discussion about their favourite elements/minerals/gems. Barry couldn’t decide so joked he liked Barium. Ray shared his love for dwarf star alloy with a ‘quick’ lecture about its rumoured properties and potential uses. Curtis listed at least 10 compounds essential for modern tech as he flip-flopped back and forth trying to decide a favourite and Lex Luthor who was visiting his sister’s project beside them interjected that he favoured kryptonite. While taking tickets Curtis witnessed the following interaction. He asked Damian Darhk, who was carrying baby Nora, what brought him to the science fair. He responded with “These are the brightest young minds in the country and being young means they are malleable. So, there is nowhere better to recruit future talent for my enterprise.” Malcolm Merlyn, who was behind, him added “I know exactly what you mean with what the world’s coming to we’re going to need a bright mind to save it.” This led Tommy, who was accompanying him, to say “I thought we were just here to support the Queen’s.” Then one of the other judges, Dr. Harrison Wells aka Eobard Thawne in disguise, added “No your Dad is right. This world’s next HERO could be in this very room. I’ve already made a list of students to keep my eye on.” He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. On it Curtis saw four names: Hartley Rathaway, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow and Ronnie Raymond. This led to a long conversation between the three men about numerous threats to society, the country and the world and the possible drastic solutions that would need to be employed to stop them. When they left Curtis turned to Ray and asked, “Was it just me or were those Doomsday Dudes really creepy?” “What” Ray replied his attention clearly being pulled from elsewhere. But before Curtis could answer a voice behind him said “Doomsday Dudes is a terrible nickname you should call them the Legion of Doom.” Curtis turned to find Cisco. “Just saying,” he continued, “anyway I heard there’s free Big Belly Burger for the contestants. When’s that coming?” Ray had missed the entire conversation Curtis was asking about because he had been making funny faces at baby Nora the whole time hoping to make her smile or laugh but she had just stared at him with her big blue eyes.

- Queen consolidated gave out a $1500 scholarship and a summer internship at the applied sciences division. This year Moira and Robert had made Oliver come and brought 9-year-old Thea. Oliver was tasked with watching Thea who ran around the entire science fair wanting to look at and touch all the projects even the ones with big ‘Do Not Touch’ signs on them. She spent at least an hour trying to get everybody around the robot pianist to sing and dance with her. Most people ignored her although she was able to get Cisco, Winn, Stein, Joe, Kara (who kept trying to get Alex to join) and to Oliver’s surprise Malcolm Merlyn all to sing with her and they were all surprisingly good. She also got many people to dance including the Lance girls. She even convinced Cisco to make the robot play some of her favourite songs from Disney movies. Barry was very happy that he was able to convince Iris to dance with him for a couple songs with just a little encouragement from Thea and despite Kara’s constant encouragement Alex only agreed to dance when Maggie asked. Oliver had to present his family’s award which went to Felicity. When her name was announced Donna yelled “Woohoo, that’s my daughter! Way to go sweetie!” which earned a whispered “Mom, ssshh” and accompanied eye roll from Felicity as she headed to the stage with her head down and cheeks flushed. When she got onstage Oliver presented her with her award and Felicity began to babble, “Thanks. This is so cool. I’m such a big fan of yours… well not yours… your company… your family’s company. But uh you seem cool too. I could be a fan of yours, but not like a creepy stalker fan just like a normal supportive fan, ya know. I’m sorry, I’m rambling, it’s just, I don’t know what to say. Your very handsome… and I just said that out loud. I’m so sorry.” She stops and whispers “come on Smoak, pull yourself together,” then takes a deep breath before addressing Oliver again, “Thank-you again for the award and I look forward to working with you, or for you. I’m just gonna go now.” Oliver couldn’t help smiling as she left and thinking that just maybe if she had been around when Thea was partnering everyone up to dance he may have just participated.

- Kara quickly got bored of standing by her project and started wandering around to talk to the other contestants. She spent a good chunk of time talking to Barry. Tried to join in on a heated debate between Felicity, Cisco and Winn about the best language to code in but quickly left when she had no idea what they were talking about. She ended up spending most of her time with Lena. They talked about their projects, their lives and interests and about dealing with new and scary situations especially when you feel different from everyone else and learnt that they were both adopted. However, the whole time they were talking Lena’s eyes kept scanning the room as if waiting for something to jump out and scare her. Kara learnt why when a woman Kara thought must be Lena’s mother showed up and menacingly questioned why she was distracting her daughter.

- J’onn came in disguise to check out the Danvers sister’s project

[nefelibata-agibilibus]

Why Young Justice is a disappointment

I just rewatched Young Justice, and I’m thinking about the disillusion I felt, and why, for a few days I have been thinking about this, and I want to write it, this will be a long post, and is just me venting about my feelings.

Why I like Young Justice

I love to see cartoons, series and movies. I always liked superheroes, and, when I found Young Justice I loved it, the animation was great, the fights were cool, the characters, the plot, It was awesome, into the things I like are:

The big plot: It was awesome, as we learned about they machinations of the villains, we met them, the idea of the Light, this group of people, using the Justice League, in the fight between Darkseid and Vandal Savage, the two of them conquering the universe, waiting to fight each other in the last, ultimate, fight.

The way we learned about the Light was cool too, in the first season we don’t know who they are, we watch a lot of people planning things in the background, before knowing what they want we know who they are, and, by learning all the kind of villains are part of this, we understand the plans are big, mixing technology, chaos magic and metahumans powers, with influence on the ocean, the world politics and one of the greatest group of assassins, even alien conquerors.

The core of the show: We can say this show, deep down, is about found family and teenagers stepping up.

The team is about found family, in the first season Artemis, Conner and M'gann are alone, and they found family on the team and their allies, Mount Justice became the house of Zatanna after Zatara puts on Nabu’s helmet, they are kind of a surface family for Kaldur’ahm, in the second season a lot of people live there, and call the place home, this is the new home for Bart, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach found friends on each other, in the third season the team is a family for Violet, Bryon, Vic, Tara and Forager, and the youth center for metahumans is meant to be a home, they even buy a new place to be their quarters.

This is specially for Artemis, she was raised by abusive parents, Sportmasters trained her to fight, in the comics we see she knows other villains kids, Jade ran away, Artemis wanted to ran away, and her mother is manipulative, she cries so Artemis accepted entering Gotham Academy, despite not wanted to do it, her mother also uses Lian to make her quit the superhero life and enter a relation with Will.

At the beginning she doesn’t trust the team, she hides the truth about her origins, and she is really worried they would find out, at the end she trust them, and, after five years, she and Wally even consider start their own family, in the mental playground M'gann created is clear they talked about marriage and having babies, she offers a home for Violet and Tara, not only teaching them how to control their powers and work as a team, but offering kindness, and that kindness saves Garfield life and helps Tara cut the relation she had with the Light, both of them were in abusive places, and a group of friends they made are the ones helping to be better, they choose the kind and loving people over the manipulative and abusive.

The second core of the show is teenagers asking to not be treated like kids without agency, untrusty of the league secrets, they can make decisions too, they can fight crime too, the world the grown ups are crafting is theirs too, and, yeah, the grown ups are more mature, can take better decisions because they have more experience, their brain is fully developed, and, at the beginning, Red Tornado, Black Canary and Batman look after the kids, keep and eye on them, assign the missions, do the training, Black Canary is a teurapet too!. They are taken care of physically and emotionally, but they ask for trust, Garfield and Conner said it, work with me or move away, this is my world too, and, if I can take decisions about what’s happening to it, I will act.

Artemis and Kaldur’ahm act won’t have worked without the team, they were trusted enough by the league, so, Kaldur betraying would be useful to the Light, but the big public didn’t knew a lot about him, and their missions were undercover, no big shows and public fights for the normal people to know about them, so the betrayal affect just the heroes, Artemis death just affects the team and the league won’t need to said out loud that she died, and then said “Just kidding, she was in a deep undercover mission”, like, If Wonder Woman, Superman, or any league member died, the people would get angry if later they just take back that and go away with it.

And they are important in other ways, during the first season, when Klarion created two worlds, the team were essential to calm the kids, and asked for the older ones to take care of the youngers, and, during the fight, they needed them to fight against Klarion and brake the stone in their reality to join the worlds, Zatanna is the one to put on the Helmet of Fate, she is the decisive piece to win the fight; in the third season, when the outsiders stepped into the spotlight, they save people, and show that Luthor’s impediments could cost lives, in the final moment the outsiders, by defeating Granny on earth, saved all the heroes.

The fights: The animation is 10/10, smooth, easy to follow, clean, I love it, but, especially in the first season, the fights are more than heroes punching villains, the fights develop a character, give exposition about their history, an inside on their minds, or moves the plot.

This is awesome, taking on account the first two seasons were made to be broadcast on cartoon network, for a casual viewer, while zapping, would stay for seeing the fight, but, for a viewer who wants to know the characters, it is always going to have exposition, for the plot or the character.

You can take, as an example, the episode 5 season 1 “Schooled”, we watch how Superman don’t want to work with Superboy, and we’re reminded about Conner’s anger issues, he’s acting proudly and Black Canary defeats him easily, Robin is the one smoothing him, a kind of foreshadowing for Dick being the leader, Conner gets the lesson “raw force won’t help you win every battle”, and, during the fight with Amazo, he understands that, they even present Artemis.

Some people would stay, watch the episode, and enjoy it, it has its own story, there is no real need to know all the plot to enjoy it, for a fan, or someone invested in the show, the episode is good, we watch the relation between Superboy and Superman, foreshadowing about Robin leadership and a lesson for Conner. 

The consequences: The things happening to the characters aren't capsuled on one episode, they do things that will affect them in the future.

I will take, as an example, the episode 17 of season 1 “Disordered”, chronologically is after the exercise of the aliens, a traumatic experience for the characters, and it isn’t swept below a rug, we got and inside of every character, you have the cool episode fight, and an introduction to New Genesis and Apokolips tech, something really important for the next seasons.

We deal with the feelings of everybody, and they give us hints about the secrets or the future of the characters, Robin wants to be away of Batman’s darkness, putting on track Dick’s journey to become Nightwing, for Wally, he acts like nothing happened, and is still in denial about his feelings towards Artemis, we get hints about M'gann secret and how she is affected by the idea of others knowing, the writers foreshadow Kaldur’ahm leaving the leader position for Robin, the fear Artemis has about her friends finding out about her family, and, Superboy’s wish to be Superman, all of that is the road to the character grow.

But they ruined it with the time skips.

        2. Where Young Justice failed?

Time skips: I was watching Young Justice with my dad, it was my second time with the series, he ended the first season, we started the second one, and my dad asked me if Netflix didn’t add a season, no, they didn’t forget a season, they decided to age the characters, put a lot of info in the firsts episodes, and I felt robbed.

The first skip is of five years, the team grow, M'gann is less like Hello, Megan, she and Conner broke up, she is dating a L’gaan, is treated like a sister by Garfield, whom developed powers and now is Beast Boy, Superman is treating Conner like a brother, he have less anger, and helped the Genomorphs to be free of Luthor, Roy tried to enter the Light undercover, with Jade help, they failed, decided to have a normal life, married, have a baby, and now Roy is in a bad place, everyone is worried and Jade rejoined the villains, Artemis and Wally keeped their relation and leaved the superhero life, they were doing fine, Dick became Nightwing and is the leader, dated Zatanna and broke up, Barbara became Batgirl, Batman adopted Jason, Jason died, he adopted Tim, and Kaldur’ahm, lost Tula, discovered Black Manta is his real father, (in the comics we met his father and mother, so everybody lied to him about his family), quit the team to become a villain, but, plot twist, is on a deep undercover mission, and, apparently, only Dick, Wally and Artemis knows about.

And we didn’t need the skips, like, all the things happening would be useful for one or two seasons, and, if you wanted the undercover thing, you have Roy, you, literally, said he was undercover with the Light, you had things with every character, a way to develop them.

The second skip is shorter than the first, but it wasn’t necessary either, they grieved Wally, Dick ended his time out of hero life, Barbara became Oracle, Bruce adopted Stephanie and Cassandra, and they became Orphan and Spoiler, M'gann and Conner were doing a home life, M'gann was the team leader, Roy decided to be a normal man, changed his name to Will and raised Lian with Artemis, she kept Tigress alias, and lied to his mother about being a hero, Kaldur’ahm got a boyfriend and became Aquaman, leading the Justice League, all Atlantis knew he betrayed them, and now he is the great hero for all the atlanteans, Bart took Kid flash’s mantel, got adopted by the Garricks, and was able to spend a good time with his grandparents, father and aunt, Jaime got a girlfriend, and the kids kidnapped by the Reach aren’t around, except for Eduardo, who is helping in the Youth center for metahumans, and Virgil, who’s a hero and wants a girlfriend.

If you start a show with a core group of characters, and they are the main characters, you can’t insinuate grow for them, give the hints about their future, and swept them under the rug with the beginning of the next season, then, the new characters I’m starting to care about are pushed away too, it disappoints me. I wouldn’t be surprised if in season 4, the team are the babies we saw in season 3.

And there is no need to do this, are little things you could justify to need the time, but aren’t really important or could happen before is stated in the show.

In the first jump you could justify the Kroletan invasion as a reason to skip the five years, but the Kroletans aren’t the main villains, they are only used to make a database about the Justice League, and, in the comics, changing the leader of Bialya to be under the control of the Light, (and this is never brought again), furthermore, you could justify the building of a complex base under the earth in few months, days or weeks with alien technology, or just begin with the Reach, and justify the existence of the database about earth heros with info given by the Light.

And during the second time skip you could say, Tara needed time to be brainwashed by Slade, the tech to activate the metagen is new, and the mental controls to the metahumans.

But, technically, they said Vandal Savage is a meta human, and he is older than human history, if you don’t want to count him, you could start the metahuman gen active since 1950, I think, if they have on the Light mind controllers, people older than the team, and literally made clones, have access to Apokolips technology, they have Lex Luthor! The Light didn’t need the time, and the way to activate the metagen is really different between the Reach and the Light, they didn’t need the Reach to begin the investigation.

The lack of character growth: They were doing well at the beginning, and were good, and they hit a few things on other characters during the other seasons, but they miss a lot.

Dick, for example, has a lot of little brother energy, out of mission he is teasing his friends, when Black Canary defeated Conner, he laughed, he made fun of Wally the first time they were with M'gann, he is asking, with mockery, Artemis about what she is doing in Gotham, he calls M'gann Bald Megan, when they are on the first mission on Santa Prisca he is mocking Kaldur about explaining the disaster to Batman; he is going to be the leader of the team, but he is young, despite being the one with most time working as a vigilante, he is only 13, in age the next is Wally, with 15, and that Robin is interesting, in the comics he is the leader of a lot of teams, he is the older brother of the batfam, but he has to learn how to work with a team, to be trustful, to talk to others.

Creating Dick’s growth about leadership is an excellent idea, learning to guide people, how to talk to them, and, when he is a leader, he learns to be a mentor, he is teaching Violet, Bryon and Forager to control their powers and work together, an seeing a character grow to this point, would be satisfying, but they don’t do this, and yes, he is leader on season 2, but he is barely there, the missions, the action they are doing, Dick is away, he only fights one or two times, when the alien traps them on the Justice Hall he is not there, when Bluebettle betrays them, Dick’s not there, and he leaves, M'gann is the new leader, and they never gave hints about her doing that, Barbara has more foreshadowing than M'gann, Dick tells Kaldur Batgirl can step up and help, not M'gann, and we don’t see her really leading, Dick is the trainer, and Garfield is the one creating the Outsiders; Dick is a leader, you want him leading a team, but you don’t let him be one.

And if you wanted a love interest, in the comics they said Dick and Barbara liked each other before the team started, when you only watch the cartoon is, almost, out of nowhere the relation, Barbara is in Gotham Academy a few seconds on season 1, she makes a joke with Dick on season 2, they are dating on season 3, and they only interact a few times, I would rather see both of them grow into a relation than Mal and Bumblebee having a drama, Barbara, literally, said she is waiting for Dick to be ready, right now he is a dog, textual words from Wally and Barbara, and the idea of two peoples saying “I love you and I want to be with you the rest of my life, but right now I’m not ready to give you all you deserve” is astonishing, or, you could talk about healthy polygamus relationship, condemning the jealousy that could destroy a couple.

The show had good points, other character starting big, but falling flat, is Bart, he is from the future, a dystopian future, he is willing to leave behind all his friends and family to be in the past, he had a flashback when he is, literally, slaved by the Reach, he is using a collar, doing hand labor, and we don’t know if he really succeed, the only glimpse we got is the man helping Bart, not scarred and radioactive, but still on a bad world, and, on the third season he is a comic relief, saves a girl, and takes a photo with Jay and Barry saying #WeAreAllOutsiders.

Too many characters: Having six characters as the core team, none of them being more important than the others, could be hard,  but they were doing it fine, the things went down with the second season.

Now we have a big team, we don’t really know their names, how they became heroes, why they are here, in the first season we met Zatanna, and get a few chapters of her interacting with the team and Artemis, the only one that the watcher don’t really care about is Roquet, but she is important showing the sidekicks they aren’t a shadow of their mentors, they aren’t just kids on costumes, they are real heroes, they inspired her, and, we could guess, inspired others.

But in season 2, there are a bunch of characters I don’t know, and I quit the show at the beginning of season 3 because I wanted to watch the original cast, Wonder girl wanting to be more, Mal and Bumblebee having romantical issues, L’gaan jealous about M’gann and Conner, Tim wanting trust, nothing of that matters to me, you didn’t need them, needed their drama, because they go nowhere, and, in the third season, they aren’t bring up again.

You needed Jaime, he was the weapon against the Reach, and Bart was a good character, but his presence meant they failed saving the world, and he was a kind of comic relief, but not annoying or silly, and they did good when Tye was kidnapped, we watched the worry of Jaime, how he searched for him, by that we cared about Tye.

I understand why they created Violet and Victor, having a father box and a mother box with them, not as a computer, but as thinking beings, Violet is the answer for Darkseid plan, Victor was created from the father box, and now is working with the team, and they are poc, Violet is no binary, they are good characters.

Bt they started a journey with a character, gave us hints about they journey, and then, all the developing on the background, in season 3 Will tell Dick to stop being a loner, Jefferson is surprised Dick searched for him to save the kids at Markovia and asked help to enter Granny’s house, Dick, for the viewer, was never a loner, on the first episode he is making the team, in the second season he is the leader, his first appearance on third season is working with Oracle, asking help for the mission on Markovia, doing a team with the Harper boys, and training Forager, Violet and Bryon, Will said “Whom are you recruiting this time?” For us that means Dick, usually, asks for help to do the missions, they tell us Dick was working alone, but never showed it.

        3. Conclusion

The most infuriating thing is the show is good, they have a lot of great ideas, I will watch the fourth season, I want to watch the DC Fandome, I love the show, all this babbling came from my heart, and I’m sad, because they have great ideas, they put seeds for an excellent show, but barely water them, they let the ideas rotten and die.

[cryptocism]

ive been scrolling through ur blog for a while (cuz ur dc opinions are Top Fucking Notch) and i saw what you said abt bart in tt 03 and f:fma and while i totally agree (it killed tt 03 for me lol) im super curious abt how youd do his development if given the opportunity?

I’ve been thinking about this one like A Lot so buckle up this is long: 

it would kind of depend? On whether or not he’d be in an ensemble team like Teen Titans or with his own solo series. 

I understand metatextually why he became Kid Flash in TT, since they needed him to be more mature and a more recognizable character and having him upgrade costumes/codenames is a good shortcut for both. But I’ve already talked about why it didn’t sit right with me. 

So, lets flip the script a little bit - the start of TT would be largely the same. Our boy Bart is on the new Titans team, and things are kind of awkward after YJ disbanded, also Max is gone and Bart’s relationship with Wally is still not doing great. Things are rough, Bart has newfound doubts to deal with, especially now that the world seems to have gotten harsher and everyone seems to have a lot less patience to deal with him. The pressure to be more mature and a recognizable character is coming from other characters now rather than an authorial need: he’s reminded to take things seriously, or that he should know better by now, that he needs to slow down and think more. So Bart decides a change is necessary, and we get the library scene. He reads all the books, he reappears as Kid Flash, saves Tim via bullet catch, disassembles a gun, takes down Slade, etc. etc. Here’s my departure from canon though: it doesn’t work. 

Kid Flash is not a solution, or a magical cure for immaturity. Reading a whole library so he’s miraculously smarter and more mature and capable is, at its core, a pretty naive conclusion. And it makes sense he would think that. But it doesn’t work. He’s still impulsive, distractible, hasty. He can’t put a lid on his own sense of humor. People still think he’s annoying or lazy or careless. And he keeps trying - he knows all this stuff now, he read a whole library! - but he’s still apparently too much the same person as he's always been. And even though he’s trying very hard to live up to the Kid Flash name, it still doesn’t feel like him. Wally doesn’t like it, since Bart is literally just imitating him now, which makes things between the two even worse. And Bart keeps worrying about what’s supposed to come afterwards, since “Kid Flash” is inherently temporary, and while Impulse was only peripherally related to the flash legacy, Kid Flash comes with expectations. 

Bart is trying very very hard to be ‘grown up’ and ‘mature’, but he hasn’t actually learned anything other than a bunch of facts (which are still useful, but) he’s just trying to be who everyone expects him to be. 

And this is what i mean about the ensemble thing, because this arc would be in conversation with the rest of the core four, who are also trying very hard to be people they’re not, but all in different ways. Bart obviously with the codename change, but Cassie, Tim, and Kon all have similar issues, they’re all trying to imitate people. 

Tim is doing his Batman jr. routine, reverting back to the persona he had at the start of YJ. He’s cagey and mysterious and does questionable things without telling anybody, because he’s de-facto leader of the team again, and he has to be better than he is. No more kid stuff, the Titans are serious, he has to treat it like a job, not like a sleepover. And this whole act is putting distance between him and his friends. 

Cassie is trying her hardest to put herself in a support role. Donna’s gone and she has some big shoes to fill (she and Tim could probably bond about that if he weren’t stubbornly trying to brood at all hours of the day) and she’s doing her best to just Be Donna. Cassie and Tim would work better with their team roles swapped, and they both sort of know this - Cassie is naturally charismatic, thinks on her feet, can maintain good PR, and when she’s confident in herself is great at leading. Tim is partial to planning ahead, secrets, and keeping in the shadows, and is better at being a confidant and emotional problem solver among the team (when he allows himself to be open among friends, that is). 

But they’re both trying to fit themselves into what they see as pre-ordained roles: Robin is leader, Wondergirl is a supportive mediator. But Cassie’s got a temper and little patience for people being idiots, and Tim’s not predisposed to spotlights. 

Kon on the other hand has a story that’s less about who he should be and more who he shouldn’t be. The Lex Luthor dad storyline is here (minus the mind control shit, although the threat of it is still brought up) and Kon is doing his level best to do nothing that could be interpreted as something Lex might do. While everyone is doing their best to Not be their own person, Kon has no idea if he ever was his own person. He’s questioning everything he does, wondering if it’s some kind of evil gene showing through when he’s angry or petty or selfish. He’s going through lots of clone angst. 

So they’re all dealing with expectations and who they are or aren’t supposed to be, trying to fit themselves into boxes that don’t suit them and then convincing themselves that this is how it ought to be. Kon ought to avoid feeling or acting in any negative light because any sign of Luthor is a sign of evil, Cassie ought to tone herself down and act like Donna, Tim ought to step up and lead the team and act like Dick, and Bart ought to listen better and be smarter and slow down and grow up and do his level best to just Be Wally. 

Throughout the issues they’d all get a spotlight on their various crises, taking them through complimenting character arcs. Kon would realize through a couple close encounters and chats with ma and pa and talks with his friends and citizens of metropolis that nobody is all good or all bad. Clark can be a real asshole sometimes and Luthor’s actually done a fair bit of good (usually in his own interests, but still we’re gunning for nuance). Turns out he doesn’t have a dark side to be tempted by, he was made from 50% complex person and 50% complex person, just like everyone else. Which means he isn’t destined to be the next Superman, or Superman’s next supervillain. He’s just like, a person. With his own thoughts and feelings that have nothing to do with genetics. 

Tim would wear himself out and hide it from everybody until he killed himself, but it’s only when he sees Cassie also wearing herself out too that his ‘somebody needs somebody’ instincts kick in and they’re actually able to talk about how miserable they both are. Through some trial and error they’re able to figure out a good co-leader system for leading the team, having each other’s backs along the way, which allows for them both being able to help out the other members of their team with their own shit i.e. Kon and Bart’s identity issues. 

Bart is, like Cassie and Tim, wearing himself out trying to be this perfect version of Wally that never actually existed. He actually hates the recognition the new name gives him, because people have expectations for him now, ones he can never seem to live up to. He’s bad at following orders still, which makes him a pretty shit sidekick for Wally, in fact he’s just pretty shit at being a sidekick in general. But, he reasons, he’s supposed to be grown up and responsible now, and responsibility is all about doing shit you hate until you die, so he’s probably on the right track. 

It’s only later, once he gets some support from his friends, who help him deal with things like Max and YJ disbanding and stuff that he’s able to actually sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Wally. Wally confesses that he understands the pressure to live up to a legacy, and how he did his best to just Be Barry when he became the flash. In fact while Bart was trying to live up to Wally and be a good sidekick, Wally was trying to live up to Barry and be a good mentor. Wally’s the one to tell him that Bart’s always done his own thing, and is at his best when he does. They both agree they suck as partners, but maybe they should’ve tried to be family first. And there’s probably a racing metaphor in there somewhere because speedsters love their racing metaphors. 

ANyway Bart returns to Impulse, forging a new path, getting along better with Wally now and hanging out with him just as civilians with no pretense. He learns some valuable lessons about how maturity can’t be learned in a book, and that he’ll get it himself the more he lives and learns from experience. The Titans all get along better now that they’re all sure of their places in the group, and they can all go on just being themselves without worrying about expectations or roles to fill or whatever. 

...If Bart still had his solo series instead though, id actually want it to go in a sort of different direction? The thing about living up to predecessors and trying to be some ideal version of another person works well for the Titans because they can all deal with a similar issue in different ways, but I think it would also be interesting to do the complete opposite. 

Lots of shitty things happened in very quick succession in Bart’s life that he had no control over: Max’s disappearance, having to move in with Jay and Joan (who are nice, but whom he barely knows,) leaving his friends in Alabama, Young Justice breaking up… Basically, things kind of suck for Bart, and all he wants is for them to go back to the way they were. Instead of trying to be grown up or mature or whatever, Bart is resisting every single encroaching thing about coming adulthood. Because all growing up ever seems to mean is that everything changes and either you have to leave the people you love or they have to leave you. 

So this series would focus mostly on that, both in his civilian life; going into high school, not knowing anybody, the few friends he does make are less interested in ‘kid stuff’ and more focused on dating and interpersonal drama, high school itself seems to be geared entirely toward the “what are you going to do with your life” question, when he visits his old friends back in manchester, they’ve all kind of grown up without him. And in hero life; everyone from Young Justice is trying to move on and not talking to each other, his father figure and mentor is gone and he's not really jiving well with the rest of the flash family, and people just seem to have less patience for Impulse now that he’s older. 

Growing up is hard. It’s hard and no one understands. Especially not when you’re also a superhero and have dealt with some quality trauma like losing loved ones and feeling yourself die. So it makes sense that Bart would resist that in every way possible, do his best to pretend like everything is still how it used to be, for once in his life just trying to make everything stay put. He refuses to get rid of his old stuff, he doesn’t want to treat any villainous threats seriously, people in school keep talking about college and jobs and tuition fees and Bart wants none of that, he acts out, refuses responsibility, gets reckless under the pretense that he never used to have to be cautious. 

And this is the part where I’d bring in Inertia, cause Thad was robbed and I want him to have an actual arc that doesn’t end with infant-splosion. Also he can have a good ol companion arc to Bart. Welcome to foils everybody, where two identical boys with opposing life experiences get to thematically compare and contrast with each other as they deal with the trials and tribulations of growing up. 

So, I’m ignoring every appearance Thad ever made after Impulse 1995, picking up instead where his story left off where he swore vengeance on his creators and disappeared into the speed force. And he’s off to do exactly what he said; Thad Thawne II is going to kill his namesake/grandfather/creator - the president of Earthgov. 

But, turns out assassinating the president of a whole fucking planet is a lot harder than he thought - Thad has planned extensively for every moment of his life, so once he starts going off script things predictably go a little off the fuckin rails. Thad fails, obviously. For one because despite how much President Thawne might deserve to die, Thad at this point hasn’t done anything worse than attempted murder, and making him a killer would put a wrench in any kind of redemption arc he could have. Also he’s acting on rage, in a highly emotional state, basically going up against the entire government. Of course he’s going to get caught by the science police and brought into custody. 

Bart, meanwhile is jumping with both feet into any kind of escapism he can find, which involves various time travel shenanigans and lands him in the 30th century. He gets to reunite however briefly with his mom, but the mission he had gets derailed by the appearance of Inertia. 

Every time Bart and President Thawne interact, the president always seems to make a bid to sway Bart to the Thawne side. This never works, which is part of the reason Inertia exists in the first place; a version of Bart that the president could control. When Inertia landed in the 30th century, hell bent on assassinating his creator, the President subdued him and eventually coerced him back over to the Thawne side of the family feud. No longer a rogue agent, Inertia is back to his old self, all about destroying Bart and the rest of the Allens. 

They have a battle, taking place all over the 30th century city, and Bart does his best but Inertia has the entire Earthgov police force on his side, and Bart eventually gets captured. He gets taken to some kind of holding facility, meets with the President who monologues as him while Inertia stands beside him like a good lackey. Then suddenly the speed-inhibiting cuffs or whatever Inertia had put on Bart to stop his speed malfunctions, and Inertia drops the act, now Impulse and Inertia working together to take down the Earthgov people holding them there. 

Turns out as soon as Inertia knew he couldn’t take out the president, what with all the military force President Thawne had on his side, he bided his time until he could. He uses Bart’s help to finally get President Thawne cornered, and the assassination plan is back on track. Except now Bart is the thing stopping him. He makes the argument about how murder bad. Heroes don’t kill, etc. Inertia insists he isn’t a hero. But Bart reminds him that that’s not how Max saw him. 

Inertia hesitates just enough that President Thawne is able to get away, and now the two of them have to make an escape attempt back to the past. Bart insists on trying to take Meloni with them, and they try but ultimately fail somehow (maybe someone has to stay behind to make sure they can make the trip safely, idk. At first Thad is willing to stay behind, since there’s nothing really for him in the past. But Meloni knows that President Thawne would destroy him if he did, and she can’t let harm come to either of her sons - and she does consider Thad her son, just like Bart. She’s had far too little time with either of them, but she loves them all the same. She tells them to take care of each other, and is the first to encourage them to be like, actual brothers.) 

After yet another tearful goodbye, Bart swearing he’ll find a way for them to all be together again, Bart and Thad go back. And they do end up having to lean on each other, because shit’s tough for the both of them. Thad initially wants to apologize and possibly reunite with Max and Helen, and then finds out Max is gone. And Bart has someone who understands exactly what he’s going through. 

Things get a little more lighthearted from here. Bart and Thad don’t get along well at first, since they’re both going through rough times and lots of changes and their first instincts are to lash out at each other. But eventually they form a sort of camaraderie through shared grief, then shared fish-out-of-water experiences. Which evolves into shared inside jokes and video games and comic books and they become slow but steady friends. 

They upgrade into brothers when Bart defends Thad against the repeated (and not entirely undeserved) suspicion he receives from the rest of the Flash family. Jay and Joan take him in, but it’s clear they don’t trust him, and neither does Wally. Bart stands up for Thad, arguing that he’s as much of a Thawne as Thad is, and treating Thad like he’s the next Cobalt Blue is just going to ensure that history never changes and stupid family feuds are forever. After this, Thad starts trusting Bart a little more, and kind of solves Bart’s problems regarding encroaching adulthood with his friendship. Neither of them really had a childhood, and Thad hasn’t experienced 21st century life at all, much less the societal expectations to grow up. So Bart gets to have fun again, and Thad won't judge any of his games or his books or his attitude or interests for being childish or lame because he’s fascinated by the experience of anything regardless of the target audience. 

And from there it's a series about these two becoming brothers and growing up and the different lessons they learn and wacky characters they meet along the way. Thad ironically also puts Bart in a position where he has to take on more responsibility, since even though Thad can imitate heroic actions and is actually pretty good at it, he doesn’t understand what makes them heroic. Bart has to draw on a lot of the things Max taught him and now has to teach them to Thad. 

There’s crossover comics with Superboy, where Bart laments about having to deal with grown up stuff, and Kon gives him a new perspective on the whole “being young forever” thing, since that was a reality Kon actually had to deal with and it sucked. 

Through various misadventures they meet new and familiar characters to give them different perspectives on the whole passage of time thing. Villains who despise children or childish things, villains who embrace it but probably too much. People who talk about growing up as the worst time of their lives, others talking about it like it was the best. Kids and adults alike trying to force Bart and Thad to act a certain way while treating them another. 

The two of them come to opposing conclusions about this; Thad wants to embrace change completely, partly because he wants to experience firsthand all that life has to offer, but also his worldview depends on believing that anyone can change, and anyone can be better, because he has to believe he can be redeemed for all the shitty stuff he did. Bart, on the other hand, knows his life isn’t perfect but thinks, based on recent events, that it’s all just going to get worse from here, and so resists change as much as possible. 

Thad, in his haste to experience everything, sometimes ends up going too far, either burning both of them out, or pushing them into situations that they’re not ready for or are ill-equipped to handle. Bart, on the other hand is so resistant to change or responsibility that he stops them from doing actual necessary things like planning their futures or doing chores or making new friends. This acts as the crux for their main conflict that slowly builds throughout the series, and then in a finale to the arc, they both figure out a way to get Meloni back to the past, and to raise some stakes they have a falling out in the middle of the mission about it. 

Bart accuses Thad of trying to leave him behind, or trying to be the better version of him again, and that old insecurity about Thad replacing him crops up. Thad thinks Bart just can’t handle anything outside his personal bubble and wants to force him to live in the real world. Plus he also feels kind of abandoned by Bart, who often would leave Thad to do the scary adult things on his own. 

Tensions still high, there's suddenly an external threat to deal with - probably president thawne and the science police - and they attempt to continue arguing even while fighting the president. I’m making this up as I go so lets say yada yada big climactic moment it's looking like the two might fail to get Meloni back and they’re both still angry with each other and Bart just… can’t take it anymore. 

He keeps losing people, and the ones he keeps he always seems to screw up with. And at the end of the day he’s just a kid who wants his mom. Is that really so much to ask? So there’s a reversal, a parallel, if you will, of the assassination attempt from the beginning of the series, this time with Bart. Or, because I don’t think many people would buy that Bart would actually ever for real kill someone, maybe he’s finally about to get his mom back, but she doesn’t want to go (since she made that deal with the president that he wouldn’t harm anyone of the Allen family so long as she stayed with him) so he’s trying to force her, risking the lives/well-being of the entire Allen bloodline across all of time. 

This time it’s Thad who has to talk him down, who has to remind him about being a hero, who has to remind him that trying to go back to some magical time in the past where things were better is just going to stop him from learning and growing as a person, and that doing anything and everything possible to get there is just going to lead to Bart doing something he Actually Can’t walk back from. 

Alright but here’s the thing because having Bart be forced to leave his mom again for like the billionth time is tired and overdone, and personally the whole message about heroics involving extreme and damaging amounts of sacrifice can only go so far. So here; Thad and Bart are both right. 

Like on the one hand, yeah, it’s childish and selfish for Bart to want to be with his mom at the expense of literally everyone else in his family. On the other hand, the fact that they can’t be together because some asshole is upholding a stupid grudge is bad and unfair and wrong. The issue needing to be fixed is not the kid who wants his mom, it’s the jackass keeping them apart (and who also wants to kill/imprison people). So Bart convinces Thad that they have to save Meloni, and Thad convinces Bart that there has to be another way - one where they get their mom back and the Allens don’t have to be hunted. 

The whole story would be leading up to the two of them coming to this conclusion; the healthy middle between the two extremes. Where they have the maturity to plan ahead and sort through their differences and figure out the best course of action with the least amount of collateral, but they don’t let go of that adolescent need for justice and fairness - that thing that makes you dig in your heels and say “no. That’s not fair, that’s not right.” 

SO here’s where I’d put the title card: “Bartholomew and Thaddeus Take Down The Government”. How do they do it? No idea! I’m flyin by the seat of my pants here! Do they run for office? Do they publicize the president’s crimes in such a way he gotta go to jail? Do they somehow turn public opinion against him enough to get him out of office? idk!!! And I don’t remember enough about Earthgov’s political situation to put an accurate read on what exactly they might do to disrupt it. 

Either way they don’t kill him, manage to free their mom, and they all go back to the past together. And a new arc would involve the three of them getting settled in the past; Meloni would be a main character now, and hers is a two-pronged fish out of water story where she’s trying to figure out how shit works in the past, with overtones of the struggles of being a single parent. 

And... I’m not going to say any more about that because this is long enough already oof. 

TL;DR I think a coming of age story would be cool for Bart, and having to deal with growing up when he never really had a childhood. Also the comic itself would be aimed at younger audiences, who can probably relate to having a Bad Time in the Teens and wacky hijinks with friends and siblings.

[rocket-roach]

People make me better

this is a gift to the amazingly talented and hilarious @causeimanartist who drew a wonder woman so beautiful it wiped my brain and rendered me incapable of rational thought. thank u. this doesnt even begin to repay the debt i owe you.

summary: Dick moved into the manor about a year ago. Bruce’s been dating Diana and Clark for a while. It’s time he brought everybody together (and he’s nervous as hell)

word count: 2014

Dick could tell Bruce was anxious about something, but every time he’d asked the question, it’d been avoided. He kept himself busy on his bars all day while he tried to puzzle out just what was making Bruce so nervous. It wasn’t Batman stuff, because when they had patrolled the night before everything had been fine. Alfred hadn’t been commenting on Wayne Enterprise’s stock price, so it wasn’t work related. He was confused. He wanted answers. After one final flip, Dick’s feet hit the floor. He’d get the answer out of Bruce if it meant sitting in his office and bugging him all day.

Dick grabbed the batman slippers he’d been gifted that Christmas. They swished across the floor as he padded towards Bruce’s office. He should be home by now, it was well after five. Bruce, being a diagnosed workaholic, would no doubt be in his office hidden behind a wall of paperwork. He pushed open the door and cleared his throat.

But the billionaire wasn’t hidden behind paper at all. He was staring at his phone, his head in his hands and looking more morose than Dick had ever seen him.

“Bruce?”

He looked up, and he was awfully pale. “Dick? What’s up, chum?”

Dick walked closer to the desk, and didn’t miss the way Bruce locked the phone before he could reach him. He was hiding something.

“Is… is everything okay?” He asked.

“Yeah,” Bruce began to lie, then stopped as his son began pouting. “Damn it. You’re too hard to lie to. C’mon, let’s go to the den. We can talk in there.”

He took Dick’s hand and led him across the hall. All manner of terrible thoughts flashed through his mind as they settled onto the couch, so he scooted closer till he was tucked under Bruce’s arm. The billionaire looked even paler in here. It was starting to make Dick really nervous.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time. You know how I work with Superman and Wonder Woman?”

Dick nodded his head.

“Good. Well, we’ve all been working together for a while,” he looked like he was about to expand on that, but instead he fell silent.

The boy sat there, with the patience of a saint while Bruce strung his thoughts together. They’d only been in each other’s lives for a little over a year now, but both Dick and Bruce had learned to read each other like a book. There were times where they had entire conversations without saying a word. This was starting to feel like one of those conversations.

“I really have no idea how to say this. They’re coming over. Tonight. The both of them.” He sounded annoyed, but Dick didn’t miss how soft his eyes got. “Diana and Clark have wanted to meet you since you moved in but I was… am, nervous about it. They’re not bad people. God, they’re the best people I’ve ever met. Clark’s so goddamn midwestern,” he was babbling now and he knew it. “and Diana’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. And we’ve… we’ve all been dating each other.”

“… that’s it?” Dick asked. Bruce still had that constipated look on his face.

“Um, yeah.”

“I get to meet Superman and Wonder woman?” he was starting to bounce now. “And you’re dating them?”

Bruce blinked. He’d expected outrage, denial, rejection, or even just distance. He didn’t expect Dick shaking with excitement and yanking on his arm in disbelief. He realized, for the umpteenth time, that he really had no idea how to raise a kid.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. They’re actually gonna be here soon- you’re really okay with me dating them?” he double checked.

“I grew up in a circus, Bruce. A lot of people did that. Mom and Dad were kind of the weird ones because they were only married to each other,” he shrugged. “Besides, they make you happy, right? That��s what all the contortionists always said. Stay with people who make you happy.”

“They make me very happy,” he said, reaching out to pull his bouncing son close again.

“Well, that’s good then! I can’t wait to meet them. Why’d you wait so long?” Dick nearly flew out of his skin as the doorbell echoed through the manor. He looked at Bruce, his hair practically frizzing.

Bruce simply took his son’s hand and led him to the foyer, where Alfred was holding the mahogany doors open as Clark, dressed in a nice blue button up and khakis followed a yellow sundress clad Diana. They smiled, their eyes lighting up at the sight of Bruce standing there with Dick. He gently nudged the boy forward, leaving his hand resting between his shoulder blades for support.

“Dick, this is Clark Kent and Diana Prince,” he introduced before Alfred could jump on his case.

Dick looked up at them, his eyes the size of dinner platters. He shook their hands gingerly, and the two of them didn’t miss the small shake in that gesture. Bruce watched all of this like a hawk, a small irrational part of him screaming to protect Dick. He quashed that part down. Dick was currently the safest person in the world, after all. He was surrounded by Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

“Hello, Dick,” Diana smiled as she knelt so they were eye to eye. “It’s very nice to meet you. You’re all Bruce’s talked about. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.”

“I- you- me?” He just about squeaked.

She smiled gently at him, and it reminded him a lot of his mom’s smile. Gentle, understanding, and she had a dimple just like his mother. He’d been so absorbed taking her features, he missed Clark bending down to his height as well.

“I’ve read a lot about you, and more about Robin. You’re doing great work, Dick. Are you taking Bruce’s lessons seriously?”

Now Superman was talking to him. Dick felt like he might combust. He looked over to Clark, and realized he was wearing glasses.

“D’you have bad eyesight?” He blurted out. Immediately following that, he clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

But Clark just laughed. “No, it’s okay. It’s something I do to separate Superman from me. Secret identities and all,” he rose back to his full height.

Diana stood as well, and offered her hand out to his. He took it, his fingers slipping into her strong grasp. He was holding hands with Wonder Woman. She began leading him through the manor, which felt a little weird but he guessed as they turned to the corner to the dining room, she’d spent much more time walking its halls than he had. Diana sneaked a peek back, just in time to see Bruce giving Clark a quick kiss.

“Bruce told me you’ve enrolled in a new school,” she said as they sat at the large table. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I do. I don’t get bullied like I did at the old school. Plus, it’s close to where Bruce works so sometimes, he picks me up and we go get- “Dick paused as Alfred walked into the room. “nutritious snacks.”

The butler’s infamous eyebrow stayed in it’s resting position.

Bruce and Clark walked in a moment later, and once they were all settled in, Alfred brought drinks. Apple juice for Dick, bourbon for Clark, Malbec for Diana and scotch for Bruce. He promised dinner would be served shortly, then left them alone.

“How long have you all been dating?” Dick asked after the silence went on for a little too long.

“Two years,” Clark answered. “This uh, doesn’t make you uncomfortable does it?”

“No,” Dick answered quickly. “No, lots of people did that in the circus. I was telling Bruce; my parents were kind of the weird ones because they were exclusive. They didn’t get treated bad or anything because of that,” he shrugged. “I just thought it was a circus thing. I think it’s nice, loving more than one person.”

Diana caught the proud smile that slipped across the billionaire’s face. Underneath the table, she took his hand and squeezed.

“Thank you,” Clark said. “You have no idea what that means to us, pal.”

Alfred wheeled in dinner at that. Pork steaks, mashed potatoes, green beans were laid out in front of them, earning dual groans of happiness from Clark and Dick. The two dug in with gusto, each telling stories of the times they’d eaten this same meal. Diana and Bruce were a little slower in joining them. The rest of the meal passed with a familial ease that hadn’t been experienced there in nearly twenty years. Once every one had been stuffed to the gills, they were shepherded into the den by Alfred who promised cookies and milk, and the adults were promised a digestif. Dick curled up in his usual spot, underneath his guardians’ arm. Diana sat to Dick’s other side, while Clark sat by Bruce and stretched an arm across the back of the couch.

“Tell me about the circus, pal. It’s been so long since I’ve been to one,” Clark prodded after a moment’s silence. “They used to come to Smallville all the time, but that was a long time ago.”

“It was amazing, Clark,” Dick hummed. “Every day Dad and I would go and help feed the animals. I loved the elephants. They were so nice! Pop always said that they knew I was a circus kid, so they were always extra gentle with me. I used to ride them around before I was old enough to fly. We had horses, too. A few of them were still pretty green, but I got to help the riders break one of them.”

“You broke a horse?” Diana asked, amazed.

“Well, they already did most of the hard stuff by the time I got to ride her. But she was a pretty white color, kind of beige. Pop said she was an American cream horse. But yeah, I got the saddle on her and rode till she stopped bucking. It was kind of fun,” he blushed, missing Clark’s look of glee and Bruce’s sudden paleness.

“That’s a pretty rare horse,” Clark couldn’t stop smiling. “How long did it take you?”

“’Bout a day,” Dick shrugged.

Diana and Clark laughed. The boy gave them both inquisitive looks.

“Sorry, Dick, that’s so impressive! Even on Themyscira it takes some of best riders a few days to break a horse. Maybe one day you could teach me something?” Diana nudged him.

“Only if Bruce is okay with it. I miss riding horses. Elephants, too. They’re so much fun to ride, you know? You just get so high up and their skin is so wrinkly but if you get the right elephant? It’s like flying.”

Bruce was already shaking his head no at the question forming on Clark’s lips. It was hard enough seeing his kid get shot at nearly every night, he didn’t need the added stress of watching him being thrown from a half ton animal.

Clark lightly punched him. Damn his hardheadedness.

“My Ma and Pa have some horses at their farm. Why don’t you come out sometime and show me what you’re made of?”

“Please, Bruce?” Dick asked, his lip beginning to move out into a pout. “It’s been so long since I’ve ridden.”

For the first time in their relationship, Diana and Clark watched as Gotham’s Dark Knight finally gave in. It was like watching the side of a mountain slough off. Something that was previously seen as immovable, vanishing in seconds.

“We’ll find a weekend,” he finally allowed. “But you’re wearing a helmet.”

Dick grinned as he squeaked, “Well, duh.”

Alfred returned with the food and the drinks, and not long after that Dick was snoring softly against his guardian’s chest.

“He’s wonderful,” Diana murmured as to not wake him. “You’re a very lucky man.”

“He makes me better,” Bruce agreed as he felt Clark’s hand rubbing his back gently. “You all do.”

[rachelking2819]

Crisis on Infinite Earths  - Review part 3

Well well well…. 6 years after crisis’ first mention we got to see the most anticipated and ambitious crossover on tv (in my opinion). Another month later and the event has been wrapped up with a pretty bow around it. Well… kind of, there is a whole lot of fallout to deal with for each of our beloved heroes. But wow what an adventure it has been. I am writing this with the last two parts and the Flash portion freshly in my mind, so bear with me please. Let’s get into it shall we?

This is most definitely my favorite part of the crossover. I have watched this episode about two or three times before watching the last two parts.  

The absolute highlight for me: West fucking Allen. We got three kisses y’all, three! Can you believe it? Cause I ain’t quite sure it happened. Ughh, the feelsss. Of course, Candice and Grant had to make me cry. Finally, the moment has come that Barry is believed to vanish, and he has a moment alone with Iris. The moment these words leave his mouth, Iris is ready and panicky saying she doesn’t want him to die alone, that she will come with him. And then Barry says those beautiful famous words: “I will be running home to you.” At this moment I am done for, my eyes welling up, my heart in pieces. The love in those eyes for their greatest love and the underlying pain. How can you not get emotional??

And then that short-lived reunion. Barry again with those damned words, the relief and happiness in their eyes and on their faces in general. Iris leaping into his arms and bringing him in for a kiss as fast as she can. Again, I am attacked with the feels.

Another great part was Black Lightning. I am not a great fan of the show, but Jefferson Pierce was just a great fit in the crossover. It didn’t feel weird or out of place. Especially the dynamic with Barry was amazing and a joy to watch. I was also very pleased with how Jefferson was brought into the mess. The moment he stepped out of the portal, he was ready for battle after losing his earth and his family. He instantly showed everyone he is a forced to be reckoned with. Later his heart to heart with Barry showed the start of a hopefully strong and lasting bond. Therefore, I demand a crossover for the Flash and Black Lightning. I truly believe that that would be amazing.

Further, I developed a new love while watching this crossover. A love for Lucifer, the devil himself. I was not yet familiar with this character before crisis. I had seen the show while scrolling through Netflix, but never felt the need to watch it. Well, that changed after his 40 seconds on my screen during the crossover. I was instantly hooked on his aloof and charming character and vowed to start watching the show. It was a winter break well spent 😉.

In this episode we met Ryan Choi, the paragon of truth. While his meeting was brief, I instantly adored him. The way he geeked out over Ray Palmer and was apprehensive to Ralph and Iris, was so adorable. Also, his first thought being to go home to his family after hearing about the universes’ demise, is the most relatable thing to happen this entire crossover. His talk with Iris however, tugged at my heartstrings. Of course, my heartache involved Iris again… I am looking forward to what the future brings for Ryan in the arrowverse.

Of course, everything has a downside and again the Oliver centric parts (apart from Lucifer’s appearance) were the parts to annoy me most. This was mostly because of Mia; I just haven’t liked her since the very first time she made an appearance. I think she is arrogant, too stubborn for her own good(not the adorable kind) and she seems to always know what’s best. Many might say, she is just like her dad. While that might be true, it isn’t working for her. Oliver got away with al this because he just always has been like that, but Mia just seems a like a little brat with never ending temper tantrums. I could go on, but let’s get back to crisis.

Another thing about Oliver’s arc here is that I just do not understand anything about what has happened on purgatory. I do now, after having seen all of crisis, but at the time my mind was just blanc. I also thought it to be too easy to remind Oliver’s soul of its humanity, I had expected some kind of battle. Not disappointed, just expected something more elaborate.

The last act shows the anti-monitor as Lyla entering the waverider and managing to wipe out earth-1 and the waverider and its occupants, except the paragons. They get send to the Vanishing Point, a place beyond space and time where the anti-monitor can’t reach them. Here the paragon of truth, Brandon Routh’s Superman, gets replaced with Lex Luthor. And honestly, I think Lex Luthor is the funniest person ever for doing this. He is so full of himself that he just rewrote destiny and put his name down. I also find it hilarious how much hatred he holds for Superman. All of part two he spent his time killing Supermen. And now to save his own life, he could have chosen any of the seven paragons, but ultimately chose the paragon that represents Superman.

What did you think of this part of Crisis on Infinite Earths? Did I miss something worth mentioning? Let me know, till next time!

[fancyfade]

killerbl0nde replied to your post :

                   actually about that reply i just got, anyone want...                

   as much as I love representation, did kaldur really come off as autistic? he always just seemed like he was different due to being from the ocean   

he came off as so autistic even my dad, who normally never headcanons characters as a specific neurotype, asked if he was on the spectrum.

He has a very precise way of speaking, which I (an actual autistic) highly relate to because i have a hard time reading the tone of what I am saying, so I tend to speak very precisely when talking about important things to avoid being misunderstood.

he seems pretty good at understanding/reading people (which people don’t often associate with autistic people but thats cuz they stereotype), like with how he is the one who appeals to superboy when the first 3 are captured in the pilot and treats him as a person and he later seems to read superboy pretty well (in the tie-in comics he checks to see if the atlantis sleep pods are bad for superboy in case they remind him of cadmus, and after the campfire episode where they were talking about their origins (and superboy was internally angsting about wanting to kill superman or something, but no one could tell), he stays behind to ask superboy if he’s okay alone. So it seems like he has a pretty high people reading skill even if he doesn’t act like the stereotypically friendly and really talkative characters (m’gann in season 1, wally). More like he speaks when he can think of something to say but is still there for people. which is definitely something I relate to heavily. Not really a specific-to-autism thing, but often times when there’s a character who has these traits they read to me that way.

He has a certain cadence to how he talks and can appear (at first) a little distant or unemotive. Lots of autistic people can wind up seeming unemotive to allistics. So I guess I’m thinking of the combination of his people reading skills and obviously caring or watching out for them with his straight face and cadence aren’t a hugely common combination

Furthermore, he shares a lot of this cadence and how he talks with Black Manta (his biological father - who is canonically autistic in the comics and IIRC autism has a hereditary aspect). It should be noted Black Manta is a human and not from the ocean.  So any explanation for that would be his autism

and Lagaan, who also comes from the ocean, speaks and acts nothing like Kaldur in terms of different-from-surface-worlders.

Like I’ll confess some of this also could be due to being in a foreign culture using his second language (I also amp up my precision in speaking when it’s my second language, because I’m not sure if i’m being understood correctly). But there’s nothing saying he can’t be autistic too!

and lastly - even if he is different because he’s from the ocean, oftentimes autistic people heavily relate to characters who are just ‘different’ for other reasons. like example from Star Wars: the Old Republic: Vector Hyllus is a joiner in a killik hive (bug hive mind), so he speaks and thinks much less individualistically than the other humans and has a hard time reading them. It’s mentioned his social skills used to be better before he was a joiner, but he’s still really readable as autistic or kind of like that, because of the difference he has. This is partly due to writers fault for normally underrepresenting neurodivergent characters and only putting somethign relatable in characters who have a “reason” to be that way. See: Eve though pretty much everyone agrees* Cassandra Cain is autistic, they gave her the “reason” to act that way in that she was raised in a highly isolated and abusive home as an assassin where she was not taught to speak.  they didn’t make a character like her who was raised in a healthy environment because they thought they needed a “reason” for it.

*unless i just hang around the cool people

@killerbl0nde

[mysterious-prophetess]

Movie Double feature

Today I saw TWO Movies somewhat back-to-back.

Bumblebee AND Aquaman.

One I’d been anticipating and one I was slightly skeptical about.

So I’m going to do my little post movie write up AS a double feature as well.

So first the overall experiences I had with both and then below a read more, I will get into spoiler territory.

Bumblebee

I will admit I had the bar set low because it’s a Transformer’s movie. Though, I was slightly hopeful because Bee was a bug like he was in the cartoon. And also, Bee is my favorite transformer’s character.

I was right to be hopeful. This movie was thoroughly enjoyable. Not once did I glance at my cellphone. Ok I did but that wasn’t because I was bored. 

The pacing could be very quick at times but the human protagonist was actually someone I could give a full damn about. The plot wrapped up nicely and if Michael Bay really wanted, he could reboot the whole franchise and it would work. Easily the best of the....how many are there at this point? Let’s see.....(one google search later) Six. Best of the Six Transformers movies out. Personally, I think Michael bay should just reboot the series.

Aquaman

I didn’t have the bar super high here either but I was hoping for it to be good because of several reasons.

1) I am a HUGE DC fangirl. That’s right I’ll admit it, I prefer DC to Marvel. So, I’d prefer it when DC movies are good.

2) Representation matters. 

3) The way they set up Aquaman in Justice League (especially with the Motherbox thing and Mera) intrigued me.

So, how was it? Well, I will say it was not as good as Wonder Woman. However, it was better than all the other current batch DC movies, though. By which I mean the ones that are already out. Which is something it does pain me to admit since I am (at heart) a hardcore Superman fangirl. So, for me current DC movie rankings in quality (in my personal opinion):

Wonder Woman

Aquaman

Justice League

Man of Steel

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (extended cut)

Suicide Squad

The tone flipped back and forth with light and more serious moments here and there. The pacing could be choppy in a few segments and Snyder is back at it again with his choices for editing scenes together. More on that in the spoiler section. But it was also fun and Arthur’s 1000000% done with it was something I could relate to. Yes, it is the standard trope-y King Arthur tale (yeah, pun intended and DC did that too) of good true king versus Bad False King, but it also wasn’t totally stale. The art direction is what really made this movie for me. I loved LOVED how the underwater civilizations looked.

Now time for the spoiler section.

You have been warned. Don’t read if you’ve not seen either.

Bumblebee

Like I said above, I did not enter this film with high expectations of it. I mean, I don’t hate the other Transformers movies. I’ll just admit up front that if I could cut out the human bits from most of the other five films and just have nothing but giant robot fights, I’d be more than good with that. Especially Dark of the Moon. Just give me the giant robot bits and omit the rest please.

Charlie is actually relatable. Especially to me because I’ve had the sucky as fuck job at an amusement park. I won’t say where or when but trust me: working at a theme park is not fun at all. She also has something of an arc in this film that isn’t “get the girl” or whatever Mark Whalberg’s character’s arc was supposed to be in Last Knight (I didn’t see age of extinction but it seemed his arc there was around fatherhood or something). Charlie is also (as a character) charming enough to help carry the film with Bee. 

I won’t say the Charlie parts were always 100% good, but definitely good more often than not.

The male human lead (Memo?)...he was just Sam Witwicky 1980′s edition and a little less pathetic. 

Bumblebee was adorable in this. I get it was the amnesia but before he lost his voice, it was nice to hear him actually talk and the fact they cast a guy with a young-ish sounding voice was something I really liked since in the cartoon I’m more than fairly certain Bee was a kid or the youngest member of the Autobots. After the amnesia, it also sort of was childlike in his behaviors. 

I even liked the Decepticons. They were barely playing nice. 

I like that the human military was trying to play them right back.

Best line in the movie was when the John Cena character Agent Burns says something like,

“Should we even trust them, It’s right in their name “Decepticons”“ 

That was actually a clever thing to have in the film. 

Something else I liked was the fact that Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Ravage were all really close to their cartoon designs, and it looked so much nicer to me.

Bee as a Camaro origin story. It was a nice touch. This skews the canon of the films a little but since it’s in my personal opinion they should just reboot it here and run with this new universe, any continuity issues aren’t that big to me.

Were there times the move just went from 0-CRAZY. Yeah. 

Charlie’s family: Borderline abusive at times, and borderline too...much. They weren’t as over the top as the Witwicky’s but that’s not saying much.

The internet already existed in the 80′s for the military as either DARPA or ARPA Net, so that little revelation was stupid.

The bullies who harrass Charlie at that party spot. I’ve never met someone that callus IRL and there is no way the bitchy chick making fun of the fact Charlie’s dad dropped dead wouldn’t have had at least someone aside from Memo and Bee going “Not Cool”

Speaking of that, the whole delinquent thing that they did to rich girl’s house? Funny but not 100% plot relevant. There were other ways to end up with Charlie, Bee, and Memo in a car chase. 

E.G. Bee’s trying to cheer Charlie up by going fast or something.

The nod to the other films with Simmons was nice. 

A solidly enjoyable film. I do actually recommend it.

Aquaman

Now onto a bigger spiel.

Again, due to DC’s track record for film quality with the current movie universe (and beyond) I did not want to have my hopes up, but I already mentioned why I wanted it to do well above.

The tonal shifts from serious to light to serious again could be (to borrow what my dad said) corny. I like corny, personally, but I get that tonal shifts like this can give others whiplash. Fortunately, they didn’t do this all the time.

What Snyder had them do enough times, however, was editing in flashbacks in the main flow of the story with little warning a la Man of Steel and I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now.

Sometimes the dialogue could be a bit on the nose and clunky but I did like Arthur’s arc in this film. It was slightly incomplete because part of his arc started in Justice League which was learning how to play nice with other people to do something. Then there was the whole reluctant leader thing. It was done well enough, but having seen it done much better in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, I know that attempting this sort of character arc in one film was asking for it to be a little less refined. Which is the result. Yet, despite it relying on a very Arthurian trope of Chosen King with Magic Weapon, it did it well enough that it wasn’t a totally stale thing. The fact he had the magic-trident of King Atlan was something he was actively working to earn throughout the movie. It did actually feel like he had gone through enough of a growth in the film (and part of Justice League) to merit him earning this achievement of his. 

The film did drag a little in places but only twice did I just want them to get on with it already.

Black Manta Ray’s origin was interesting in this universe. Arthur did quasi-create this enemy. 

On the other hand, I can’t fully feel sympathy for a murderous pirate dying because he tried to kill Arthur and Arthur decided that the man who tried to blow him up wasn’t someone he wanted to save. But that’s because I’m a vindictive bitch.

Arthur, later, realizes that he should have done the right thing all along but too late now. He also realizes the value of mercy because of this so...

Mera’s powers are never fully explained, but I find myself mostly ok with that because I just started calling her a waterbender in my head. 

Arhtur and Mera’s relationship evolved semi-organically. They did have chemistry for the most part, but it was almost too cliche at times yet it was fine because it’s the action movie romance cliches that aren’t 100 horrible but it was even at times a little sweet.

So, let’s go over, in detail what I loved about the art direction

Yes, it does look very similar to other underwater cities that I’ve seen in the past in other media, but they also incorporated enough new and nature inspired parts to it that I loved looking at each underwater civilization. The ruins, the tech, the fact things glowed the way they did. That pirate ship air pocket was also a really interesting thing though I kept wondering where Ariel was

I even got that the reason there was water in the Atlantean vehicles was Atlanteans don’t need to worry about things being airtight because they breathe under water. 

Later when it was explained that only a handful of Atlanteans can even breath in the atmosphere it made even more sense.

When Volko was training Arthur in his Atlantean skills and stuff started to glow once he went deeper in the water I actually nodded because there is scientific evidence that every living thing does give off small amounts of bioluminesce. Even we humans do, but it’s so faint we can’t perceive it.

I personally think the Atlanteans should have glowed a little too. 

The different species of Atlantean were very neat. Especially the “feral” ones. Reminded me of someone crossing a Zora with that creature from Pan’s Labyrinth or that thing from Hellboy 2 that Liz made a deal with to save Hellboy.

Onto other things:

The Karathen. I did not expect her to live up to the hype the movie was building her up to be. I was also pleasantly surprised that it was a “she” during the scene where she is trash-talking Arthur without knowing that he can understand her. Then, later, I found out she is voiced by Julie Andrews.

Also, because the Karathen did make such a huge impact in that final fight two things entered my head.

“RELEASE THE KRAKEN” and 

Orm: “I have an army!”

Arthur: “I have a sea monster.”

The Atlantis thrown down was noticed but that got me thinking: Where was the rest of the JL during this. Were they just doing damage control or something after Orm’s little oceanic temper tantrum?

The mid-credits stinger with Mantaray. I knew he wasn’t done because Manta Ray is a major Aquaman villain. I just didn’t think the Atlantis obsessed prof would end up finding him.

I don’t fully get why Nereus would want a war with the surface with Orm in charge, unless he would just strike Orm down later and take his power. 

I didn’t get why the fishpeople didn’t just RUN AWAY whenever Arthur showed up with the Karathen AND wielding the Trident of Atlan. All Fish-People Princess would have had to do was say “my people RUN FROM THE MONSTER” And Orm’s armies (and Orm himself) would be so busy fighting a literal sea monster from their worst nightmares that no one could or would have stopped them.

In fact, I am confused as to why there wasn’t mass panic once the Karathen showed up and she started wrecking all the military vehicles. -\( `-`)/-

Arthur’s ability to speak to the aquatic animals was actually built up to be a major ability. 

Aquaman’s been made fun of in the past for this, but considering he was able to talk to the Karathen, and control a bunch of apex sea predators (turning them on their masters) it isn’t something to be fully laughed off. Outside the ocean, sure it doesn’t really make a huge difference but that’s where making the Atlanteans tougher than land humans comes in. That too makes actual sense with the reasons as to why this was.

Atlanna’s survival wasn’t really too much of a shock for me. I was half-expecting the Trench-peoples to not be totally savage and actually just have a bad rep. 

The Hidden Sea at the Earth’s core bit got an eyebrow quirk. I was half expecting it to be the Caspian Sea....

I would still very much recommend Aquaman.